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V 


*     DEC  2  9  1906      * 


Division     £)553S 
Section      .&Z2.    ' 


THE  BIBLE  AS 
ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


THE   BIBLE   AS 
ENGLISH    LITERATURE 


Jf 


J.   H.    GARDINER 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF   ENGLISH  IN 
HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
NEW   YORK 1906 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

Published,  October,  1906 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING   AND  BOOKBINDING   COMPANY 

ntW  YORK 


PEEFACE 


This  book  springs  from  a  course  of  study  which 
I  have  offered  for  several  years  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity in  the  Department  of  English.  In  this  course 
my  object  has  been  to  make  students  as  familiar  as 
possible  with  the  English  Bible,  and  to  throw  light 
on  its  literary  forms  by  bringing  together  facts  from 
the  history  of  its  sources  and  from  the  history  of  the 
translation  into  English.  For  the  latter  purpose  I 
have  drawn  freely  on  the  larger  results  of  the  great 
school  of  learning  which  is  commonly  known  as  the 
Higher  Criticism.  This  is  in  itself,  as  has  often 
been  pointed  out,  merely  a  critical  study  of  the  vari- 
ous books  of  both  Old  and  'New  Testaments  from 
the  historical  point  of  view;  it  arrives  at  its  results 
by  a  faithful  comparison  of  the  various  parts  with 
each  other,  and  by  bringing  to  bear  on  them  all  per- 
tinent facts  from  the  monuments  and  other  external 
sources  of  history.  I  have  confined  myself  almost 
wholly  to  the  larger  results  of  the  school,  on  which 
there  is  substantial  agreement  among  scholars*  and 


vi  PREFACE 

I  have  nowhere,  I  believe,  made  statements  of  fact 
which  cannot  be  tested  by  a  knowledge  of  the  English 
Bible.  I  have  not  cited  authorities,  partly  for  the 
reason  just  stated,  but  more  because  this  book  does 
not  pretend  to  deal  with  doubtful  questions  at  first 
hand:  it  is  rather  an  essay  in  which  conclusions  al- 
ready established  are  used  to  illuminate  purely  liter- 
ary characteristics.  In  an  appendix  I  have  named  a 
few  words  which  will  serve  as  a  guide  for  any  reader 
who  may  care  to  go  farther  with  the  analytical  study 
of  the  Bible;  in  those  books  will  be  found  copious 
citation  of  the  authorities. 

Since  this  is  a  study  in  English  literature  I  have 
confined  myself  wholly  to  the  Authorised  Version. 
If  another  generation  should  return  to  the  general 
reading  of  the  Bible  the  Revised  Version  may  be- 
come English  literature ;  but  that  is  a  matter  for  the 
future  to  determine.  For  this  reason  all  my  quota- 
tions come  from  the  Authorised  Version,  even  where 
the  translation  is  imperfect  or  incorrect.  It  is  well 
understood  that  the  Revised  Version  is  a  better  basis 
for  the  study  of  Hebrew  literature  or  of  JSTew  Testa- 
ment literature. 

In  all  my  discussion  I  have  assumed  the  fact  of 
inspiration,  but  without  attempting  to  define  it  or  to 
distinguish  between  religious  and  literary  inspira- 
tion.    The  two  come  together  in  a  broad  region  where 


PREFACE  Vii 

every  one  who  cares  for  a  delimitation  must  run  his 
line  for  himself.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  no 
literary  criticism  of  the  Bible  could  hope  for  success 
which  was  not  reverent  in  tone.  A  critic  who  should 
approach  it  superciliously  or  arrogantly  would  miss 
all  that  has  given  the  book  its  power  as  literature  and 
its  lasting  and  universal  appeal. 

A  large  part  of  the  book  was  delivered  in  the 
form  of  a  course  of  lectures  at  the  Lowell  Institute 
during  the  past  winter.  The  chapter  on  the  poetry, 
and  portions  of  some  other  chapters,  have  appeared  as 
essays  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly]  and  I  am  under  ob- 
ligations to  the  editor  of  that  magazine  for  his  kind 
permission  to  use  them. 

To  several  of  my  colleagues  I  owe  special  thanks 
for  their  generosity  in  opening  to  me  their  own  stores 
of  learning  and  for  advising  me  in  my  reading. 
Chief  among  them  are  Professor  Toy,  who  has  shown 
me  unwearying  kindness  in  many  difficulties.  Pro- 
fessor G.  F.  Moore,  Professor  Lyon,  and  Professor 
Popes,  who,  besides  giving  me  much  valuable  advice, 
has  been  good  enough  to  read  some  of  the  manuscript 


J.  H.  Gaedineb. 


18  Grays  Hall,  Harvard  University, 
June  16,  1906. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAOE 

Introduction 1 

The  English  Bible  a  single  book — The  historical  background. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Narrative 34 

The  different  types  of  narrative — Their  primitiye  simplicity 
of  thought — The  simplicity  of  the  Hebrew  language — The 
New  Testament  narrative — The  concreteness  of  Biblical 
narrative. 

CHAPTER  III 
The  Poetry 88 

The  different  types  of  poetry — The  form  of  the  poetry — The 
expression  of  the  emotions  through  concreteness  of  phrase 
and  the  music  of  the  style — The  intensity  and  elevation  of 
spirit  due  to  the  historical  background — The  poetry  always 
the  expression  of  immediate  and  real  emotion. 

CHAPTER   IV 

The  Wisdom  Books 137 

The  character  of  the  books  and  the  problems  they  discuss — 
The  absence  of  reasoning  and  the  predominance  of  emotion 
and  intuition. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  V 

PAGE 

The  Epistles  op  the  New  Testament     .    .    .     .171 

The  first  three  gospels  analogous  in  form  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment— The  epistles  show  reasoning — St.  Paul's  exposition 
largely  figurative — His  reasoning  largely  mystical. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Prophecy 208 

Its  general  character— Its  development  and  breaking  up — Its 
special  power. 

CHAPTER  VII 

The  Apocalypse 250 

Its  development  from  the  prophecy— The  visions  of  the  apoc- 
alypse— Their  borrowings  from  the  prophecy— The  visions 
impalpable— The  message  of  the  apocalypse  dependent 
on  connotation  and  the  music  of  the  style.  Its  essential 
power. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Translation 282 

Introductory — The  collection  of  the  separate  books  into  the 
Scriptures — The  Septuagint — The  Vulgate  and  its  influence 
on  the  English — The  preparation  for  the  translation  into 
English— Tindale's  work  as  translator— The  completion  of 
the  translation  and  the  subsequent  revisions  before  1600 — 
The  Authorised  Version. 


CONTENTS  xi 


CHAPTER   IX 

PAOK 

The  King  James  Bible 355 

The  state  of  the  English  language  and  the  strength  of  religious 
feeling  in  the  sixteenth  century — The  concreteness  and 
simplicity  of  the  English  of  the  period — The  Bible  both 
foreign  and  native  in  English  literature — The  English  Bible 
a  standard  for  the  literature,  both  in  style  and  substance. 

APPENDIX 397 

INDEX 399 


THE   BIBLE    AS   ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 


CHAPTEK    I 

rNTEODUCTION 


When  one  begins  to  study  the  Bible  from  tbe 
point  of  view  of  English  literature,  one  sees  at  once 
that  though  it  has  grown  into  the  substance  of  that 
literature  nevertheless  it  has  still  its  own  character 
and  its  own  place  apart.  At  first  sight  sufficient 
explanation  for  this  separateness  seems  to  be  foimd 
in  the  fact  that  it  always  has  been  and  is  still  ven- 
erated as  the  word  of  God.  A  little  further 
consideration,  however,  shows  that  though  this  is 
one  cause  it  is  far  from  being  the  only  cause  or  even 
the  chief  cause  for  this  peculiar  position  of  the  Bible 
in  our  literature;  for  all  its  literary  characteristics 
and  the  mode  of  thought  and  the  purpose  of  its 
writers  are  demonstrably  different  from  those  which 
lie  behind  any  other  work  in  the  language.  This 
uniqueness  of  character  and  of  position  of  the 
Bible  in  English  literature  springs  from  the  essen- 


2  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

tial  character  of  the  book  itself,  and  not  merely 
from  the  attitude  of  its  readers  toward  it. 

Before  we  go  on,  however,  to  study  this  unique 
character  of  this  great  work  of  literature  we  must 
first  clearly  recognize  the  closely  related  fact  that  in 
English  literature  the  Bible  is  a  single  book.  Be- 
fore long  we  shall  have  to  enter  into  some  analysis 
of  the  parts  of  the  book  into  their  component  sources, 
and  this  analysis  may  tend  to  obscure  the  essential 
unity  of  the  whole.  Yet  the  popular  usage  which 
speaks  of  the  Bible  as  a  single  book  in  spite  of  the 
diversity  of  its  parts,  and  in  an  equally  natural  way 
of  Biblical  style  as  established  fact  in  literature,  is 
a  sound  usage.  In  English  literature  the  Bible  is 
a  single  book,  and  not  a  "  library  of  books." 

This  distinctness  and  unity  of  character  runs  not 
only  to  the  style  but  to  the  substance.  In  substance 
a  minute's  consideration  will  show  any  one  how 
naturally  he  thinks  of  this  book  as  the  sum  of  the 
actions  and  sayings  of  men  of  another  region  and 
another  age  of  the  world;  and  whether  these  men 
of  Palestine  come  from  the  time  of  David  or  from 
the  time  of  St.  Paul,  they  lie  together  in  one's  mind 
as  belonging  to  a  single  land  and  a  single  marvellous 
period  of  the  world's  history.  Moreover,  the  whole 
substance  is  imbued  with  a  directness  and  a  fresh- 
ness of  inspiration  which  are  unique.     It  is  a  right 


INTRODUCTION  3 

instinct,  for  all  that  Emerson  has  said,  which  puts 
the  sayings  of  Isaiah  and  of  Amos,  of  St.  Paul  and 
of  St.  John  on  a  higher  level  than  the  savings  of 
Socrates  or  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  puts  the  words 
of  Jesus  in  a  place  apart  and  above  them  all.  The 
older  and  normal  classification  is  merely  a  recogni- 
tion of  established  facts  in  history  and  literature. 
Even  as  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  I^ew 
Testament  the  differences  seem  slight  and  negligible 
when  we  compare  either  with  anything  else  in 
English  literature.  Moreover,  the  two  run  together 
through  many  common  characteristics:  Christianity 
is  deeply  rooted  in  the  religion  of  Israel;  and  all 
through  the  book,  whether  in  the  Old  Testament 
or  the  I^ew,  there  is  the  same  earnestness  and  under- 
lying warmth  of  feeling,  even  in  the  stories  of 
Samson  and  his  rude  jests  on  the  Philistines,  or  in 
the  quite  unreligious  book  of  Esther.  Everywhere 
one  feels  the  consciousness  of  the  original  writers 
that  they  were  telling  the  story  of  the  chosen  people 
of  God  and  setting  forth  the  fulfilment  of  his 
promises  to  them.  And  throughout  the  whole  book 
there  is  the  unswerving  and  developing  sense  that 
there  is  a  God  in  the  world  whose  sway  is  justice 
and  righteousness  and  love,  and  whose  service  is  the 
highest  duty  of  mankind.  In  all  these  ways  the 
substance  of  the  Bible  is  marked  by  an   essential. 


4  .    THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

underlying  nnitj  of  character,  which  makes  it  in  a 
very  real  way  a  single  book. 

This  same  essential  unity  of  quality  is  even  more 
palpable  in  the  style,  which  in  its  directness  and  its 
simple  nobility  is  the  one  standard  which  we  have 
in  English  to  control  the  development  of  our  lan- 
guage. The  phrases  from  the  Bible  which  have 
grown  into  our  everyday  speech  spring  impartially 
from  the  Old  and  ISTew  Testaments :  we  use  "  the 
son  of  his  old  age,"  or  "  the  valley  of  the  shad- 
of  death,"  or  "  the  pure  in  spirit,"  or  "  lilies  of 
field,"  without  thinking  whether  they  come  fr^ 
one  part  of  the  book  or  the  other.  This  unity  of  st;  ^e 
is,  as  we  shall  see,  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
whole  book  was  translated  at  the  same  period  into 
a  language  of  unsurpassed  and  unfaded  vigor, 
which  now  has  enough  tinge  of  the  archaic  to  give 
it  a  color  of  its  own.  It  was  Tindale's  great  achieve- 
ment that  once  for  all  he  fixed  the  language  of  the 
whole  Bible:  and  under  the  anxious  and  inspired 
care  of  the  revisers  who  followed  in  his  steps  the 
style  has  been  brought  to  a  point  of  simplicity  and 
dignity,  of  strong  feeling  expressed  by  the  rich 
music  of  the  prose,  of  stateliness  and  directness, 
which  sets  it  apart  from  the  style  of  any  other  book 
in  the  language. 

Thus  whether  we  consider  the  substance  or  the 


INTRODUCrriON  5 

style  of  the  Bible,  we  only  reinforce  our  original 
impression  that  in  English  literature  it  is  a  single 
book.  If  we  were  studying  Hebrew  literature  or 
New  Testament  literature  we  should  of  necessity 
break  it  up  and  should  find  the  force  of  the  common 
saying  that  the  Bible  is  a  "library  of  books";  but 
for  our  present  purpose  it  is  a  single  book  in  as 
real  a  sense,  though  in  a  different  one,  as  that  in 
which  the  works  of  Shakspere  constitute  a  single 
»k.  In  a  volume  of  his  works  it  is  a  far  cry  from 
teuphuistic  ingenuities  of  Lovers  Labour^ s  Lost  or 
rant  and  bombast  of  some  parts  of  the  early 
cx.  >onicle  histories  or  the  passionate  romance  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet  to  the  intense  complication  of 
thought  in  Hamlet  or  the  great-hearted  power  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  from  them  to  the  placid 
and  autumnal  charm  of  The  Tempest.  But  for  all 
these  differences  they  have  a  common  underlying 
character;  and  elusive  though  it  may  be,  we  recog- 
nize that  Shakspere's  personality  hides  behind  them 
all.  So  in  quite  another  way  with  the  Eng- 
lish Bible:  though  there  can  be  no  question  here  of 
personality,  yet  the  unity  of  character  is  indis- 
putable; for  the  religion  of  which  it  is  the  written 
revelation  is  as  distinctly  individual  as  is  the  char- 
acter which  gives  consistency  to  the  words  and  deeds 
of  a  man.     At  the  end  of  our  study  I  shall  recur 


6  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

to  this  point,  and  after  the  analysis  and  discussion 
of  distinctions,  try  to  bring  my  readers  back  to  this 
natural  attitude  towards  the  Bible  as  a  whole  and 
single  book. 

In  the  meantime,  in  the  hope  of  enrichmg  that 
impression  by  pointing  out  the  immense  variety  of 
the  different  parts  which  blend  into  the  impres- 
sion of  the  whole,  I  shall  dwell  on  the  diversity  of  the 
sources  from  which  they  spring,  both  in  substance  and 
in  time.  Those  of  the  Old  Testament  cover  in  time 
certainly  more  than  a  thousand  years.  The  earliest 
materials  go  back  to  a  period  when  the  people  of 
Israel  were  barely  emerging  from  the  wanderings 
of  a  nomadic  life.  These  stories  and  songs  and  laws 
gradually  coalesced  in  the  hands  of  a  long  series  of 
compilers  and  writers  into  something  like  connected 
histories;  then  in  the  hands  of  successive  schools  of 
prophets  and  priests,  each  with  a  clearer  and  higher 
perception  of  the  true  nature  of  Jehovah  and  his 
relations  to  his  chosen  people,  these  histories  were  in 
some  cases  changed  in  purpose  and  contents,  and  ex- 
panded by  additions,  in  part  of  prophetic  exhorta- 
tion, in  part  of  legal  and  liturgical  prescriptions, 
until  in  the  narrow  and  bitter  times  of  the  Persian 
sovereignty  they  came  into  their  present  form.  The 
books  of  poetry,  though  each  incorporates  material 
from  earlier  times,  came  to  be  the  expression  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  7 

thought  and  aspirations  of  the  Jews  of  this  same 
late  period,  a  period  when  they  were  struggling  for 
their  existence  both  as  a  nation  and  as  a  church  with 
a  noble  and  inextinguishable  faith.  The  prophecy, 
the  key  to  the  whole  literature,  first  taking  written 
form  with  Amos  and  Hosea  and  Isaiah,  came  to  its 
height  with  them ;  and  then  gradually  losing  its 
power,  after  the  times  of  the  Captivity  it  dried  up  or 
ran  off  into  the  inspired  dreams  of  the  apocalyptic  lit- 
erature, which  continued  on  far  beyond  the  apostolic 
age  of  the  New  Testament.  Then  in  the  New 
Testament,  we  come  to  books  which  were  written 
in  a  modern  and  Western  language,  when  the  Roman 
empire  held  undisputed  sway  over  the  world. 
Thus  in  point  of  time  the  work  that  we  shall  be 
studying  ranges  in  origin  from  some  time  before 
1200  B.C.  to  at  least  as  late  as  the  end  of  the  first 
century  a.d. 

In  material  there  is  a  corresponding  variety.^ 
There  are  scraps  of  folk-songs  of  war  and  victory, 
early  legends  and  myths,  histories  based  on  contem- 
porary records  and  full  of  the  vigor  of  a  most  vigor- 
ous time,  great  bodies  of  laws  which  reflect  important 
changes  in  civilization,  highly  developed  schemes  of 
liturgy  and  ecclesiastical  law,  collections  of  proverbs 
so  pithy  and  closely  wrought  that  they  still  hold 
their  truth,  psalms  of  pious  and  connected  medita- 


8  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

tion  or  of  jubilant  ejaculations  of  faith,  the  soaring 
messages  of  the  prophecy,  the  mystical  visions  of  the 
apocalypse,  the  simple,  everlasting  stories  and  teach- 
ings of  the  gospels,  the  fiery  and  soaring  arguments 
of  St.  Paul. 

In  the  Old  Testament  all  this  material  is  Oriental : 
it  springs  from  the  same  civilization  as  the  Arabian 
Nights.  But  it  has  preserved  for  us  the  history, 
the  poetry,  the  wisdom,  the  religious  ideals  and 
national  hopes  of  a  people  whose  individuality  and 
tenacity  of  thought  are  perhaps  the  strongest  known 
in  history.  The  poetry  is  marked  by  a  singular  con- 
creteness  and  objectivity  both  of  idea  and  of  idiom, 
and  by  a  freedom  of  form  otherwise  unknown  in 
English.  The  books  of  wisdom  are  shrewd  or  at 
times  soaring,  but  they  never  reason  in  the  modern 
sense  of  the  word.  The  religious  ideas  develop 
without  any  break  which  could  make  the  pious  Jew 
of  the  fourth  century  B.C.  feel  himself  cut  loose  from 
ancestors  of  the  tenth  or  fifteenth  century  b.c.  whose 
religion  and  worship  had  close  kinship  to  those  of 
other  desert  tribes. 

In  the  I^ew  Testament  side  by  side  with  the  Ori- 
ental simplicity  of  the  first  three  gospels  and  of  some 
of  the  later  books  there  is  a  new  element,  and  an  ap- 
proach to  modern  ways  of  thought  in  the  fourth  gos- 
pel, in  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul,  and  in  Hebrews.    In 


INTRODUCTION  9 

these  works  we  find  the  first  effort  to  make  a  theology, 
— to  philosophize  religion.  As  a  whole,  the  New  Tes- 
tament has  its  unity  in  the  substance  of  its  doctrines, 
in  the  fact  that  in  all  its  books  it  sets  forth  the 
same  facts,  the  same  doctrines,  the  same  hopes,  and 
the  same  ideals:  but  the  two  ways  in  which  it  sets 
them  forth  are  as  different  as  the  East  and  the  West. 
Yet  all  this  diversity  has  grown  together  into  the 
unity  of  our  English  Bible.  The  seeds  of  this  unity 
were  already  sown  in  Old  Testament  times  in  the 
gradual  advance  of  the  people  of  Israel  to  higher 
and  purer  ideas  of  the  nature  and  majesty  of 
Jehovah.  In  each  age  their  books  of  history  were 
subject  to  a  constant  revision  which  selected  and 
moulded  the  material  with  a  strongly  governing  pur- 
pose. In  the  times  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  the  Law 
in  the  form  of  our  Pentateuch  became  a  definite 
book,  venerated  above  all  other  books  in  existence. 
Then  the  prophetical  books,  which  for  the  Jew  in- 
cluded the  historical  books  after  the  Pentateuch, 
followed  the  Law  to  a  separate  and  kindred  place 
in  their  esteem;  and  finally  the  Old  Testament  was 
completed  by  the  addition  of  the  other  books.  All 
this  collecting  and  editing  was  done  by  men  with 
no  sense  of  literary  ownership  or  of  historical  de- 
velopment. Thus  there  was  a  constant  tendency  to 
confuse  and  obliterate  the  special  characteristics  of 


10  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

different  portions  of  the  literature.  Moreover,  the 
text  was  still  so  fluid  down  to  the  very  beginning 
of  our  era  that  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint,  which 
was  made  after  300  B.C.,  differs  in  important  re- 
spects from  the  established  text  of  the  Hebrew. 

At  the  same  time  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha 
show  that  there  was  no  gulf  between  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New.  Even  the  forms  are  continuous 
and  overlapping:  the  apocalyptic,  which  came  to  its 
full  growth  in  Daniel,  is  carried  on  in  Revelation 
and  in  2  Esdras;  some  of  the  psalms  almost  surely 
come  from  Maccabean  times,  less  than  two  hundred 
years  before  the  Christian  age,  and  the  Magnificat 
and  Nunc  Dimittis  in  St.  Luke  are  a  product  of  the 
same  mode  of  literature.  Moreover,  in  literary  form 
the  first  three  gospels  are  indistinguishable  from 
analogous  portions  of  the  Old  Testament.  Thus  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  merge  insensibly  into 
those  of  the  l^ew. 

The  processes  of  translation  still  further  obliter- 
ated differences  and  created  similarities.  The  Vul- 
gate, which  was  the  Bible  of  all  Europe  down  to 
the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  by  its  strong 
coloring  and  its  beauty  and  splendor  of  phrasing  to 
some  extent  stamped  its  character  on  our  version; 
and  long  before  the  fifteenth  century  men  had  lost  all 
idea  of  any  large  differences  between  the  parts  of 


INTRODUCTION  11 

the  Bible.  The  versions  of  the  sixteenth  century 
still  further  reinforced  the  unity  of  character  of  the 
whole  Bible.  When  the  devoted  labors  of  William 
Tindale,  his  scholarship  and  his  genius,  had  set  the 
style  of  the  English,  the  later  revisions  merely  cor- 
rected the  detail  without  altering  the  strong  char- 
acteristics which  he  had  stamped  on  it.  Moreover, 
the  language  of  England  in  the  sixteenth  century  had 
the  vigor  which  belongs  to  a  vernacular  freshly 
turned  to  purposes  of  literature ;  and  its  comparative 
poverty  in  abstract  and  learned  words  separate  it 
from  our  language  of  to-day,  and  even  without  what 
is  for  us  a  slightly  archaic  coloring  help  again  to  set 
the  Bible  a  little  apart  from  other  books. 

Thus  the  work  which  we  are  to  consider  here  came 
to  its  full  growth  in  the  English  in  a  form  which, 
in  spite  of  its  foreign  origins  and  the  diversity  of 
its  sources,  makes  it  a  single  book,  and  the  book 
which  of  all  books  in  English  is  the  most  native  and 
the  most  deeply  ingrained  in  our  literature  and  our 
language.  The  object  of  this  essay  will  be  to  throw 
light  on  this  enduring  power,  and  especially  on  some 
of  the  causes  which  enabled  its  appeal  to  survive 
so  many  centuries  of  time  and  the  translation  into 
a  language  of  wholly  different  genius.  In  discuss- 
ing the  book  I  shall  look  at  it  as  the  one  book 
which  in  the  last  three  centuries  has  reached  the 


12  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

hearts  and  expressed  the  deepest  feelings  of  all 
classes  of  English-speaking  people,  as  the  book  which 
since  the  time  of  the  great  Puritan  uprising  of  the 
seventeenth  century  has  so  worked  itself  into  the 
hone  and  sinew  of  English  literature  and  of  the 
English  language  that  to-day  our  common  speech  is 
full  of  its  phrases.  And  looking  at  the  book  from 
this  special  and  narrow  point  of  view  I  shall  confine 
myself  wholly  to  its  characteristics  as  a  work  of 
English  literature. 


n 


Since  the  Bible  is  essentially  a  national  literature, 
however,  and  the  Old  Testament  especially  so, 
to  understand  how  it  came  to  be  what  it  is  one  must 
have  a  clearer  notion  of  the  actual  history  of  the 
people  than  can  be  gained  from  an  uncritical  reading 
of  its  historical  books ;  and  especially  one  must  realize 
the  great  change  which  was  wrought  in  the  religious 
life  of  the  people  of  Israel,  and  by  necessary  con- 
sequence in  their  literature,  by  the  revelations 
through  the  prophets.  The  messages  of  Amos, 
Hosea,  and  Isaiah  which  preceded  and  accompanied 
the  national  disasters  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  and 
those  of  their  successors  in  later  ages,  changed  not 


INTRODUCTION  13 

only  the  substance  but  the  outward  form  and  struc- 
ture of  the  literature. 

To  begin  with,  one  must  realize  how  much  the 
course  of  the  history  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  was  de- 
termined by  the  situation  and  character  of  the  coun- 
try they  inhabited.  Palestine,  constituting  as  it 
does  the  narrow  strip  of  habitable  land  between  the 
desert  and  the  Mediterranean,  was  the  bridge  over 
which  ran  the  trade  routes  between  the  valley  of  the 
^N^ile  and  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates.  Accordingly 
the  states  formed  by  its  changing  inhabitants  were  at 
best  little  more  than  buffers  between  the  great  empires 
of  Egypt  and  of  Assyria  and  Chaldea:  and  they 
were  constantly  subject  to  the  domination  of  one 
or  the  other  or  to  the  almost  incessant  wars  be- 
tween them.  The  country  itself  in  the  south  is 
rough,  hilly  and  mountainous,  but  in  the  north 
opens  out  into  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon  or 
Megiddo.  Thus,  though  the  north  was  open  to  in- 
vasion, the  line  of  mountains  to  the  west  of  Jordan, 
especially  in  the  south,  created  almost  impregnable 
strongholds,  such  as  Samaria  and  Jerusalem,  which 
made  possible  in  the  dawn  of  Israelite  history  the 
persistence  of  the  Canaanite  clans,  later  the  ex- 
ploits of  Jonathan  and  David,  and  still  later,  at  the 
threshold  of  the  Christian  era,  the  marvellous  vic- 
tories of  the  Maccabees.     The  greater  ruggedness 


14  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

and  sterility  of  the  south  largely  account  for  the 
survival  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  for  more  than  a 
century  after  the  destruction  of  the  kingdom  of 
Samaria  by  the  Assyrians. 

The  people  of  Israel  who  were  to  rule  this  region 
with  many  vicissitudes  for  less  than  a  thousand 
years,  sprang  from  the  nomadic  tribes  of  the  Arabian 
desert,  which  produced  also  the  Ammonites,  the 
Moabites  and  the  Edomites,  and  probably  also  the 
Assyrians  and  Chaldeans.  Some  time,  probably  in 
the  second  half  of  the  second  millennium  before 
Christ,  these  clans  from  the  desert  seem  to  have 
settled  on  the  northeast  border  of  Egypt.  Their  ori- 
gin and  early  history  are  very  obscure,  for  the 
stories  of  the  patriarchs  are  probably  largely  or 
wholly  legendary;  and  it  is  not  until  the  Exodus  that 
even  the  outlines  of  the  history  become  at  all  dis- 
tinct. At  this  period,  when  the  Egyptians  afflicted 
them  with  burdens  and  forced  them  to  build  "  for 
Pharaoh  treasure  cities,  Pithom  and  Raamses,"  they 
broke  loose  from  their  masters  under  the  leadership 
of  Moses  and  moved  off  into  the  wilderness  of  Sinai. 
Here  the  tribes  renewed  their  covenant  with  Jehovah 
and  became  thenceforth  definitively  Jehovah's  people. 
This  solemn  renewal  of  allegiance  to  their  own  God 
stamped  Israel  with  an  individual  character,  which 
in  future  ages  was  to  separate  them  from  all  other  na- 


INTRODUCTION  15 

tions.  After  the  death  of  Moses,  under  the  lead- 
ership of  Joshua,  they  made  their  entry  into 
Canaan,  crossing  the  Jordan  at  Jericho  just  above 
the  Dead  Sea.  Their  establishment  here,  as  can  be 
seen  from  a  careful  reading  of  Joshua  and  Judges, 
was  slow  and  their  advance  irregular.  Some  of  the 
natives  of  the  country  maintained  themselves  in 
their  strongholds  for  a  long  period:  Jerusalem,  for 
example,  was  not  taken  until  the  reign  of  David. 
Then  gradually,  as  they  fought  their  way  to  su- 
premacy in  Palestine,  they  became  transformed 
from  a  more  or  less  incoherent  league  into  a  people 
settled  in  cities  and  engaged  in  agriculture. 

The  completion  of  this  slow  process  came  just 
before  1000  B.C.,  when  Saul,  after  beating  back  the 
Philistines,  the  neighbors  of  Israel  on  the  sea-coast 
of  the  Mediterranean,  established  a  kingdom  which 
included  all  the  tribes  of  Israel.  When  he  died 
fighting  the  Philistines  at  Gilboa,  David,  succeed- 
ing at  first  to  the  leadership  of  Judah,  presently  by 
shrewd  and  conciliatory  statesmanship,  by  prowess 
as  a  warrior,  and  with  the  aid  of  such  relentless 
leaders  as  Amasa  and  Joab,  established  his  rule  over 
all  the  tribes.  He  not  only  consolidated  the  king- 
dom, but  he  widened  its  borders  to  Damascus  on 
the  northeast  and  to  Elath  on  the  Eed  Sea.  Under 
Solomon    the    kingdom    must    have    taken    on    the 


16  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

features  of  an  Oriental  despotism.  His  wisdom  was 
a  wisdom  of  peace:  and  he  made  leagues  with  his 
neighbors  and  enriched  himself  through  trade.  He 
hired  mercenaries,  he  built  fortresses  by  forced  la- 
bor, and  he  introduced  into  his  capital  at  Jerusalem 
all  those  luxuries  which  we  are  told  filled  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  with  such  wonder  that  "  there  was  no  more 
speech  left  in  her."  The  luxury  and  the  oppres- 
siveness of  his  reign,  however,  broke  up  the  king- 
dom. On  his  death  Jeroboam  led  all  the  tribes  of 
the  north  in  a  rebellion  against  the  dynasty  of 
David,  and  established  the  kingdom  of  North  Israel, 
which  until  the  disaster  of  722  B.C.  was  to  be  the 
leader  of  the  two  kingdoms. 

Then  for  a  couple  of  centuries  these  two  little 
kingdoms  stood  side  by  side,  sometimes  in  warfare 
against  each  other,  sometimes  in  coalition  against 
their  neighbors,  always  overshadowed  by  the  great 
power  of  Assyria.  In  Judah  the  dynasty  of  David 
maintained  itself:  in  North  Israel  the  ruling  family 
changed  four  times  before  the  final  anarchy  which 
preceded  the  annihilation  of  the  kingdom.  When 
the  power  of  Assyria  again  strengthened  itself  after 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  the  beginning  of 
the  end  was  at  hand.  Pekah,  the  king  of  Israel,  and 
Kezon,  the  king  of  Damascus,  "  those  two  tails  of 
smoking  firebrands,"  as  Isaiah  calls  them,  formed  a 


INTRODUCTION  17 

coalition  which  attempted  to  stem  the  tide.  When 
they  made  war  on  Ahaz  of  Judah  to  force  him  into 
the  coalition,  he  bribed  Tiglath-Pilezer  to  help  him. 
The  latter  put  an  end  to  the  kingdom  of  Damascus 
and  devastated  the  northern  and  eastern  frontiers 
of  ;N"orth  Israel.  Then  after  a  long  siege  Sargon 
took  the  city  of  Samaria  in  722  b.c,  and  deported 
much  of  the  population  of  the  northern  kingdom  to 
the  far  East,  putting  in  their  place  foreigners  from 
the  Euphrates.  So  ends  the  first  chapter  in  the 
history  of  Israel.  Henceforth  Judah  is  left  stand- 
ing as  a  vassal  of  the  great  power  of  Assyria  for 
another  century,  but  its  extinction  was  merely  a 
question  of  time. 

Down  to  this  period  it  is  probable  that  the  people 
of  Israel  differed  not  very  much  from  the  kindred 
nations  across  the  Jordan,  Moab  and  Ammon,  who 
were  of  the  same  Semitic  stem.  The  Moabites 
served  Chemosh,  and  the  Ammonites  Milcom  in 
much  the  same  manner  that  Israel  served  Jehovah; 
and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  down  to 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  b.c,  a  century  after 
the  time  of  Elijah,  Israel  thought  of  Jehovah  as  a 
god  of  the  same  general  nature  as  the  gods  of  their 
neighbors.  He  was  to  them  their  special  tribal  god, 
their  champion  against  Chemosh  or  Milcom  or  the 
special  god   of   any  other  nation  with  which  they 


18  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

might  clash.  Probably  the  religion  of  Israel  was  in 
essence  purer  and  simpler  than  those  of  their  neigh- 
bors; but  Judges  and  Kings  show  how  continually 
the  religion  of  Jehovah  was  in  danger  of  contamina- 
tion by  these  other  religions.  The  merciless  ex- 
termination of  the  worshippers  of  Baal  under  the 
leadership  of  Elijah  and  Elisha  in  the  ninth  century 
B.C.  was  a  successful  reaction  against  the  inroads 
of  foreign  gods  on  the  allegiance  of  Israel  to  Je- 
hovah; but  we  must  suppose  that  down  to  this  time 
the  religion  of  Israel  differed  only  in  degree  of 
purity  from  the  worship  of  the  surrounding  nations, 
and  that  often  the  service  of  the  heathen  gods  went 
on  side  by  side  with  the  worship  of  Jehovah. 

With  the  eighth  century,  however,  a  new  light 
breaks  for  the  religion  of  Israel.  If  the  doctrine 
which  had  hitherto  been  accepted  by  all  the  Semitic 
peoples  were  true,  that  the  god  of  each  nation  would 
protect  it  against  other  gods  and  their  nations,  then 
obviously  the  power  of  Jehovah  had  become  weak 
and  limited,  for  Assyria  had  overrun  and  destroyed 
the  kingdom  of  I^orth  Israel.  In  this  crisis  we 
see  the  saving  power  of  the  religion  of  Israel.  As 
the  cloud  was  approaching,  and  before  it  broke, 
Amos  and  H(^ea  had  proclaimed  a  new  doctrine. 
They  announced  to  the  people  that  Jehovah  would 
punish  Israel  for  its  unrighteousness,  and  that  he 


INTRODUCTION  19 

would  use  the  hosts   of  the   heathen  for  his  own 
purposes : 

But,  behold,  I  will  raise  up  against  you  a  nation, 
O  house  of  Israel,  saith  the  Lord  the  God  of  hosts: 
and  they  shall  afflict  you  from  the  entering  in  of 
Hemath  unto  the  river  of  the  wilderness.^ 


And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Amos,  what  seest 
thou?  And  I  said,  A  plumbhne.  Then  said  the 
Lord,  Behold,  I  will  set  a  plumbline  in  the  midst 
of  my  people  Israel :  I  will  not  again  pass  them  by 
any  more: 

And  the  high  places  of  Isaac  shall  be  desolate, 
and  the  sanctuaries  of  Israel  shall  be  laid  waste; 
and  I  will  rise  against  the  house  of  Jeroboam  with 
the  sword. 2 

And  in  the  next  generation  Isaiah  reinforced  this 
doctrine  to  Judah : 

Now  therefore,  behold,  the  Lord  bringeth  up 
upon  them  the  waters  of  the  river,  strong  and 
many,  even  the  king  of  Assyria,  and  all  his  glory: 
and  he  shall  come  up  over  all  his  channels,  and  go 
over  all  his  banks: 

And  he  shall  pass  through  Judah ;  he  shall  over- 
flow and  go  over,  he  shall  reach  even  to  the  neck; 
and  the  stretching  out  of  his  wings  shall  fill  the 
breadth  of  thy  land,  O  Immanuel.^ 
*  Amos  vi.  14.  ^  lb.,  vii.  8,  9.  '  Isa.  viii.  7-8. 


20  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

This  was  a  new  and  unwelcome  doctrine  to  the 
people  of  Israel  and  of  Judah.  Heretofore  their  re- 
ligion had  meant  largely  a  cheerful  round  of  festi- 
vals and  the  observance  of  the  ritual  purity  by  which 
Jehovah  was  to  be  propitiated.^  This  new  message 
declared  that  Jehovah  no  longer  shielded  them  from 
disaster;  but  that  it  was  he,  their  own  God,  who 
was  bringing  the  disaster  on  them,  to  punish  them 
for  their  unrighteousness  and  their  evil-doing.  It 
was  probably  a  long  time  before  the  people  as  a 
whole  rose  to  the  acceptance  of  this  high  doctrine; 
but  its  proclamation  at  just  this  time  is  a  striking 
example  of  the  way  in  which  the  religion  of  Israel 
was  to  be  again  and  again  lifted  above  what  seemed 
a  nullification  by  events  through  the  revelation  of  a 
wider  and  more  spiritual  conception  of  the  nature 
of  Jehovah  and  of  his  relation  to  his  chosen  people. 
It  is  this  new  idea  which  gives  to  the  earlier  editing 
of  the  books  of  history  the  touch  of  awe  and  won- 
der for  the  continuous  and  loving  care  of  Jehovah 
for  his  chosen  people,  and  which  makes  these  books 
as  wholes  so  different  from  the  materials  out  of  which 
they  were  built.  Henceforward  the  religion  of  Israel 
differs  not  merely  in  degree  but  in  kind  from  the 
religion  of  its  neighbors. 

The  outward  history  of  Judah,  left  alone  on  its 
'  Cf.  Isa.  i.  10-20. 


INTRODUCTION  21 

hills  from  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  is 
obscure.  Almost  all  we  know  is  that  it  remained  a 
vassal  of  the  Assyrians  until  the  destruction  of 
Nineveh  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Assyrian  power 
in  607  B.C.,  and  that  then  it  passed  helplessly  into  the 
hands  of  the  Chaldeans,  who  had  succeeded  to  the 
empire  of  Assyria.  The  weak  and  foolish  kings  of 
the  time  of  Jeremiah  intrigued  with  Egypt  against 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  in  597  B.C.  the  latter  oc- 
cupied Jerusalem  and  carried  away  the  flower  of 
the  people,  with  most  of  the  priests,  to  Chaldea, 
where  he  settled  them  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Babylon.  When  the  intrigues  were  renewed  he  re- 
turned, and  in  586  sacked  the  city,  destroyed  the 
temple  and  carried  away  all  of  the  population  of 
Judah  except  a  handful  of  peasants,  whom  he  left  to 
keep  the  land  from  reverting  entirely  into  wilderness. 
So  passed  away  the  kingdom  of  Judah. 

In  the  meantime,  about  a  generation  before  this 
final  catastrophe,  the  discovery  of  Deuteronomy  in 
the  temple  and  its  acceptance  by  Josiah  and  the 
people  of  Judah  as  the  basis  on  which  to  renew  their 
covenant  with  Jehovah  worked  a  revolution  in  the 
religious  observances,  and  ultimately  in  the  whole 
constitution,  of  the  Jewish  people.  The  great  un- 
known prophet  who  wrote  the  work,  recognizing 
that  so  long  as  each  village  and  town  had  its  o^vn 


22  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

priest  and  its  own  high  place  just  so  long  would 
the  unclean  rites  of  the  heathen  gods  creep  in  to 
contaminate  the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah,  ordained 
that  henceforward  all  sacrifices  should  be  offered  at 
Jerusalem : 

But  unto  the  place  which  the  Lord  your  God 
shall  choose  out  of  all  your  tribes  to  put  his  name 
there,  even  unto  his  habitation  shall  ye  seek,  and 
thither  thou  shalt  come: 

And  thither  ye  shall  bring  your  burnt  offerings, 
and  your  sacrifices,  and  your  tithes,  and  heave 
offerings  of  your  hand,  and  your  vows,  and  your 
freewill  offerings,  and  the  firstlings  of  your  herds 
and  of  your  flocks : 

And  there  ye  shall  eat  before  the  Lord  your  God, 
and  ye  shall  rejoice  in  all  that  ye  put  your  hand 
unto,  ye  and  your  households,  wherein  the  Lord 
thy  God  hath  blessed  thee. 

Ye  shall  not  do  after  all  the  things  that  we  do 
here  this  day,  every  man  whatsoever  is  right  in 
his  own  eyes.i 

Though  Deuteronomy  provided  that  the  Levites 
from  the  rest  of  the  country  should  minister  in  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  in  practice  the  priests  of  Jeru- 
salem maintained  their  exclusive  rights,  and  the  other 
Levites  became  doorkeepers  and  servants.  Thus  came 
about  the  distinction  between  priests  and  Levites 
1  Deut.  xii.  5-8. 


INTRODUCTION  23 

which  was  to  continue  till  the  final  destruction  of 
the  temple.  At  the  same  time  this  concentration  of 
the  worship  at  one  place  enormously  increased  the 
influence  and  the  professional  feeling  of  the  priests 
and  so  paved  the  way  for  the  establishment  of  the 
hierarchy ;  and  out  of  this  hierarchy  grew  the  eccle- 
siastical organization  which  kept  the  Jews  from 
slowly  sifting  away  into  the  nations  among  which 
they  were  scattered. 

On  the  literature  the  influence  of  Deuteronomy 
and  of  the  priestly  ideas  which  grew  out  of  it  was 
no  less  dominant  than  on  the  organization  of  the 
nation.  From  now  on  the  records  of  the  race  were 
rewritten  from  ^^  history  with  a  moral "  into  "  his- 
tory for  the  moral.''  This  reconstruction  at  first  in 
the  hands  of  writers  full  of  the  Deuteronomic  idea 
of  the  covenant  between  Jehovah  and  his  people 
brought  Judges  J  Samuel,  and  Kings  into  their  pres- 
ent form.  Then  as  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  men 
of  narrower  professional  interests  it  led  to  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  great  body  of  laws  and  liturgical  and 
ritual  prescriptions  foimd  in  the  middle  books  of  the 
Pentateuch.  At  the  same  time,  as  we  shall  see,  the 
problems  produced  by  a  literal  application  of  Deu- 
teronomy to  the  later  condition  of  the  Jews  brought 
forth  the  great  book  of  Joh  and  many  of  the  psalms. 

Outwardly  the  history  of  the  Jews  who  lived  in 


24  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Palestine  for  the  six  centuries  or  less  from  the  time 
of  the  exile  to  the  final  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
is  chiefly  a  history  of  oppression  and  distress.  From 
this  period  dates  also  the  Dispersal,  which  had  its  be- 
ginning in  conquest  and  deportation,  but  soon  became 
dependent  on  the  instinct  for  commerce.  The  Jews 
who  spread  in  all  directions  through  the  known  world 
became  in  point  of  numbers  and  prosperity  of  more 
consequence  than  the  Jews  who  still  lived  in  Pales- 
tine. But  wherever  they  lived,  whether  in  Persia  or 
in  Egypt,  or  on  the  borders  of  the  Mediterranean, 
they  held  together  as  a  nation  through  their  passion- 
ate devotion  to  their  religion  and  their  unquenchable 
faith  in  Jehovah.  The  history  of  the  Jews  in  Pal- 
estine during  this  'period  is  extremely  obscure :  in  the 
fourth  century  B.C.,  we  have  hardly  a  single  fact  of 
their  history.  It  is  known  that  the  struggle  of  the 
Egyptians  for  freedom  from  Persian  rule  was  in  part 
fought  over  the  territory  of  Palestine,  and  it  is  al- 
most certain  that  the  Jews  must  have  suffered  bit- 
terly from  the  armies  of  the  Persians.  In  the  next 
century,  after  the  conquest  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
the  Jews  probably  had  for  eighty  years  a  period  of 
some  peace  and  quiet  under  the  rule  of  the  first 
three  Ptolemies.  We  know  that  they  were  in  high 
favor  at  the  Egyptian  court,  and  prosperous  in  Alex- 
andria.    All  through  this  period  they  must  have 


INTRODUCTION  25 

been  gaining  the  larger  experience  of  the  world 
which  appears  in  the  later  literature  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  even  more  in  the  Apocrypha.  With 
the  renewed  war  between  Egypt  and  the  Seleucidan 
kings  of  Syria,  the  Jews  found  themselves  in  their 
old  unhappy  position  of  inhabiting  the  bridge  over 
which  the  hostile  forces  must  fight.  The  balance 
swung  to  the  Syrians  under  Antiochus  III.,  who  in 
the  first  years  of  the  second  century  B.C.  wrested 
Palestine  from  the  Ptolemy  of  the  time.  His  son, 
Antiochus  TV.  Epiphanes,  who  came  to  the  throne 
in  175  B.C.,  made  a  determined  and  deliberate  at- 
tempt to  stamp  out  the  religion  of  the  troublesome 
nation  which  inhabited  the  highlands  in  the  south  of 
his  kingdom.  He  desecrated  the  temple  by  setting 
up  an  image  of  Zeus  in  the  Holy  of  Holies, — the 
abomination  of  desolations,  as  Daniel  calls  it, — 
he  gave  orders  for  the  destruction  of  all  copies  of 
the  law,  he  forbade  circumcision  and  the  observance 
of  the  sabbath,  and  started  an  active  and  bloody  per- 
secution against  all  Jews  who  resisted  his  commands. 
At  first  it  seemed  as  if  the  end  were  come.  Then 
at  last  an  aged  priest,  Mattathias,  in  the  little  moun- 
tain village  of  Modin,  in  desperation  struck  down 
a  Jew  who  was  offering  the  unclean  sacrifice  and  the 
Syrian  officer  who  was  enforcing  it.  With  his  five 
sons   he   fled  to  the   mountains,   and  there   with   a 


26  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

little  band  as  desperate  as  himself  he  beat  back  the 
party  sent  by  the  Syrians  against  him.  Then  in  suc- 
cessive marvellous  victories  his  son,  Judas  Macca- 
beus, beat  back  one  expedition  after  another  until 
finally  in  165  he  defeated  the  viceroy  Lysias  him- 
self. After  the  death  of  Antiochus  in  164  Judas 
and  the  two  brothers  who  successively  followed  him 
in  the  leadership  were  able  in  143  by  military  valor 
and  by  shrewd  intrigues  with  the  claimants  for  the 
throne  of  the  Seleucidse  to  establish  the  Jews  once 
more  as  an  independent  kingdom,  a  kingdom  which 
was  to  last  eighty  years.  During  this  time  the  sons 
and  descendants  of  Mattathias  became  more  and  more 
merely  civil  rulers,  and  the  high  priesthood,  which 
they  held  hereditarily,  became  almost  a  civil  office. 

With  the  coming  of  the  Eomans  came  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  Pompey  in  63  b.c.  took  Jeru- 
salem and  plundered  the  temple,  though  he  did  not 
disturb  the  daily  sacrifice.  Syria,  including  Pales- 
tine, was  now  a  Roman  province.  In  37  b.c.  Herod, 
the  ruler  of  the  little  Idumean  kingdom,  succeeded 
in  having  himself  made  by  the  Eomans  king  over 
the  Jews.  His  reign  was  marked  by  magnificent 
building  of  cities  with  fortresses,  temples  and  the- 
atres; the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem 
lasted  till  4  b.c.  With  his  death  his  kingdom  was 
divided,   and  Judea  was  henceforth  shifted  by  the 


INTRODUCTION  27 

Eomans  from  one  political  division  and  one  ruler  to 
another.  All  through  this  time  the  Jews  had  been 
turbulent.  Thej  were  bitterly  divided  against  each 
other  and  continually  intriguing.  Finally  in  66  a.d. 
the  country  blazed  out  into  a  war  which  forced 
the  Romans  to  bring  large  reinforcements  to  Pales- 
tine. Vespasian  came  to  the  gates  of  Jerusalem, 
where  the  parties  of  the  Jews  had  been  fighting 
against  each  other,  but  the  final  capture  of  the 
city,  whose  garrison  was  divided  against  itself, 
was  delayed  until  the  coming  of  Titus  in  Septem- 
ber, TO  A.D.  This  time  the  Romans  did  the  work 
thoroughly.  The  city  was  sacked,  and  the  inhabi- 
tants sold  as  slaves  or  used  in  the  combats  in  the 
public  games ;  and  the  plunder  of  the  temple  was  ex- 
hibited in  the  triumph  of  Vespasian  and  Titus  in 
Rome.  So  came  the  final  end  of  the  Jews  as  a  nation 
with  a  local  and  settled  home. 

Meantime  their  religion,  starting  from  the  impetus 
given  by  the  great  prophets  of  the  eighth  century, 
Amos,  Hosea  and  Isaiah,  soared  to  constantly  higher 
planes.  The  great  writer  who  wrote  the  original 
Deuteronomy^  besides  concentrating  the  worship  at 
Jerusalem,  formulated  in  the  Tth  century  b.c.  the 
doctrine  of  the  dependence  of  the  outward  fortunes 
of  Israel  on  its  faithfulness  to  the  covenant  with 
Jehovah. 


28  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

The  Lord  did  not  set  his  love  upon  you,  nor 
choose  you,  because  ye  were  more  in  number 
than  any  people:  for  ye  were  the  fewest  of  all 
people : 

But  because  the  Lord  loved  you,  and  because 
he  would  keep  the  oath  which  he  had  sworn  unto 
your  fathers,  hath  the  Lord  brought  you  out  with 
a  mighty  hand,  and  redeemed  you  out  of  the  house 
of  bondmen,  from  the  hand  of  Pharaoh  king  of 
Egypt. 

Know  therefore  that  the  Lord  thy  God,  he  is 
God,  the  faithful  God,  which  keepeth  covenant 
and  mercy  with  them  that  love  him  and  keep  his 
commandments  to  a  thousand  generations; 

And  repayeth  them  that  hate  him  to  their  face, 
to  destroy  them:  he  will  not  be  slack  to  him  that 
hateth  him,  he  will  repay  him  to  his  face. 

Thou  shalt  therefore  keep  the  commandments, 
and  the  statutes,  and  the  judgments,  which  I  com- 
mand thee  this  day,  to  do  them.^ 

In  the  next  century,  during  the  Exile,  another 
great  unknown  prophet,  whom  we  may  call  the 
Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  advanced  to  a  new  and  higher 
doctrine.     Through  his  mouth  Jehovah  proclaimed: 

I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no 
God  beside  me:  I  girded  thee,  though  thou  hast 
not  known  me: 

That  they  may  know  from  the  rising  of  the  sun, 

^  Deut.  vii.  7-11. 


INTRODUCTION  29 

and  from  the  west,  that  there  is  none  beside  me. 
I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else. 

I  form  the  light,  and  create  darkness:  I  make 
peace,  and  create  evil:  I  the  Lord  do  all  these 
things.^ 

And  he  sets  forth  as  the  corollary  of  this  doc- 
trine the  futility  of  idol-worship.  The  notable  pas- 
sage of  grim  humor  in  Isaiah  describes  how  a  man, 
after  hewing  down  an  ash, 

burneth  part  thereof  in  the  fire;  with  part  thereof 
he  eateth  flesh;  he  roasteth  roast,  and  is  satisfied: 
yea,  he  warmeth  himself,  and  saith,  Aha,  I  am 
warm,  I  have  seen  the  fire: 

And  the  residue  thereof  he  maketh  a  god,  even 
his  graven  image:  he  falleth  down  unto  it,  and 
worshippeth  it,  and  prayeth  unto  it,  and  saith, 
Deliver  me;  for  thou  art  my  God.^ 

When  one  remembers  that  these  mighty  doctrines 
were  uttered  by  the  prophet  of  a  people  whom  the 
Chaldeans  must  have  looked  on  as  one  of  the  least 
important  of  their  captive  nations,  one  sees  how  far 
the  religion  of  Israel  had  risen.  In  the  succeeding 
centuries  the  Jews  rose  to  still  further  heights. 
Clinging  as  they  did  with  a  passionate  earnestness 
to  the  promises  of  the  prophets  and  at  the  same  time 
driven  by  the  coercive  weight  of  circumstances  to 

» Isa.  xlv.  5-7.  2  lb.  xliv.  16-17. 


30  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

see  that  tliese  promises  could  not  be  fulfilled  in  their 
own  day,  gradually  they  came  to  realize  that  their 
faith  would  be  rewarded  in  a  future  life;  and  in 
Daniel  and  the  other  apocalyptic  writings,  the  doc- 
trine of  immortality  is  set  forth  clearly  and  specifi- 
cally. 

And  many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the 
earth  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and 
some  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt. 

And  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  bright- 
ness of  the  firmament;  and  they  that  turn  many 
to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever.^ 

From  this  period  between  the  Captivity  and  the 
period  of  the  Maccabees  come  probably  many  of  the 
psalms,  and  the  great  poem  of  Joh.  Meditation  on 
the  meaning  of  the  world  had  come,  but  it  was 
guided  by  men  whose  faith  in  their  God  was  un- 
quenchable. 

Thus  in  the  thousand  years  or  less  in  which  the 
history  of  the  people  of  Israel  can  be  traced,  we  find 
them  changed  from  a  small  and  loosely  bound  league 
of  nomadic  tribes  to  a  congregation  widely  scat- 
tered through  the  world,  and  bound  together  only 
by  their  allegiance  to  a  law  understood  and  followed 
in  the  most  scrupulously  literal  way.  In  their  re- 
ligion they  have  passed  from  the  simple,  unthinking 

^  Dan.  xii.  2-3. 


INTRODUCTION  31 

devotion  of  a  desert  tribe  to  its  tribal  god  to  a 
realization  that  Jehovah  is  the  God  of  all  the  earth, 
and  that  though  his  chosen  people  may  for  a  time 
seem  to  be  oppressed  and  helpless,  yet  it  is  in  his 
power  to  set  them  above  all  the  heathen  who  sur- 
round them.  It  is  the  history  of  a  people  who  in 
spite  of  disasters  which  often  brought  it  to  the 
verge  of  annihilation,  yet  by  its  inextinguishable 
faith  rose  superior  to  the  events  of  this  life  and 
attained  to  an  elevation  of  religious  thought  which 
has  made  it  for  all  its  small  numbers  and  its 
helplessness  one  of  the  great  powers  in  the  shaping 
of  the  modern  world. 

The  books  of  the  ITew  Testament  are  hardly 
affected  by  external  history,  for  the  Christian  Church 
accepted  the  empire  of  Rome  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  spread  of  Christianity  to  the  Jews  of  the  Dis- 
persal and  then  to  the  Gentiles  led  to  the  translation 
of  the  gospel  into  terms  of  Western  thought  under 
the  leadership  of  St.  Paul,  and  Revelation  was  written 
under  the  stress  of  the  early  persecutions  against  the 
Christians;  but  otherwise  the  books  written  to  aid 
the  spread  of  the  gospel  were  little  influenced  by 
external  history.  The  Christian  Church  in  the  apos- 
tolic days  was  in  no  way  a  political  organization, 
and  was  only  indirectly  influenced  by  the  political 


32  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

events  of  the  time.  Most  of  the  epistles  of  the  !N'ew 
Testament  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  reflect  the  back- 
ground of  modem  thought  from  the  Greek-speaking 
world  to  which  they  were  addressed:  but  it  is  only 
in  this  indirect  way  that  the  books  of  the  'New  Testa- 
ment are  affected  by  the  permanent  shift  in  the 
mastership  of  the  world  from  the  long  succession  of 
Oriental  powers  to  the  Greeks  and  Komans. 

Such  then  is  the  background  of  country  and  of 
history  from  which  the  various  materials  of  our 
English  Bible  sprang.  For  the  most  part  the  region 
was  even  more  Oriental  than  Cairo  or  Damascus 
and  the  rest  of  the  great  Mohammedan  world  of  to- 
day; but  it  was  the  home  of  a  people  of  extraordinary 
individuality,  and  endowed  moreover  with  a  religious 
and  moral  sense  which  rose  constantly  to  higher  levels 
of  spiritual  elevation.  Without  this  vitality  of  their 
religion  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  people 
of  Israel  would  have  survived  the  incessant  warfares 
and  conquests  which  they  underwent  any  more  than 
did  their  kindred,  the  people  of  Moab  or  of  Ammon ; 
but  through  it  their  great  men  brought  forth  books 
which  have  turned  the  history  of  the  world.  Inci- 
dentally, translated  into  English,  and  grown  into  a 
single  book,  these  books  have  become  the  greatest 
single  monument  of  our  own  literature. 


INTRODUCTION  33 

For  convenience  of  study  I  will  first  discuss  the 
several  literary  types  into  which  the  books  may  be 
classified,  roughly  following  the  order  in  which  they 
come  in  our  English  Bible;  then  I  will  set  forth 
the  processes  of  translation  and  revision  which  led 
up  to  the  Authorised  Version  of  1611;  and  finally 
I  will  discuss  the  qualities  and  characteristics  of  that 
version  as  we  read  it  to-day. 


CHAPTEK   II 

THE       NAREATIVE 


In  any  adequate  study  of  the  narrative  of  the 
Bible  there  must  be  a  considerable  amount  of 
analysis  and  discrimination ;  for  the  narrative  of  the 
New  Testament  differs  from  that  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  within  the  Old  Testament  itself  there  is 
great  variety  of  type.  Nevertheless,  one  can  say  that 
all  the  narrative  of  the  Bible  shows  a  combination  of 
two  sets  of  qualities:  on  the  one  hand  it  has  a  sim- 
plicity and  a  limpid  and  vivid  clearness  which  make 
it  appeal  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men;  on  the 
other  hand  through  its  whole  range  it  has  an  under- 
current of  earnestness  and  strong  feeling.  Thus  the 
style  clothes  and  transfigures  even  homely  events 
with  beauty  and  spiritual  power;  and  the  concrete- 
ness  and  clearness  crystallize  the  deep  feeling  ex- 
pressed by  the  strong  rhythm  and  the  varied  music 
of  the  style.  These  two  sets  of  characteristics,  then, 
the  simplicity  and  vivid  clearness  on  the  one  hand, 

34 


THE  NARRATIVE  35 

and  the  earnestness  and  rich  depth  of  feeling  on  the 
other,  we  may  take  as  the  most  characteristic  at- 
tributes of  these  narratives. 

By  a  discussion  of  these  attributes  in  the  light 
thrown  on  the  various  books  by  modern  scholarship 
we  shall  be  able  partly  to  trace  some  of  the  causes 
from  which  they  proceed.  We  shall  find  that  from 
the  substance  and  ideas  of  the  Hebrew  books  of 
history  and  from  the  nature  of  their  language  spring 
the  causes  of  the  directness  and  the  concreteness  of 
the  Old  Testament  narratives:  and  we  shall  see  that 
the  history  of  the  Jews  helps  to  explain  the  in- 
creasingly deeper  and  more  spiritual  insight  into  the 
meaning  of  their  history  which  produced  the  solem- 
nity and  elevation  of  these  works.  At  the  same 
time,  the  way  in  which  the  various  types  of  nar- 
rative have  been  put  together  has  produced  a  literary 
effect  different  from  anything  else  that  we  have  in 
English  literature.  A  final  consideration  which  I 
shall  put  off  to  the  chapter  on  the  translation  is  the 
fact  that  in  the  English  this  narrative,  though  a 
translation,  has  a  freshness  and  vigor  of  motion 
above  all  other  narratives  in  the  language.  Here 
again,  we  shall  find  some  explanation  in  the  history 
of  the  period  when  the  translation  was  made,  and 
in  the  character  and  the  circumstances  of  the  men 
who  made  it. 


36  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

In  our  ordinary  speech  the  phrase  "  Biblical  nar- 
rative "  seems  to  express  a  definite  enough  fact  for 
our  present  purpose;  yet  when  one  thinks  over  the 
various  books  of  the  Bible,  their  differences  begin 
to  stand  out  and  give  us  pause.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  opening  chapters  of  Genesis,  or 
between  the  simple,  primitive  stories  of  Judges  and 
Samuel  and  the  intensity  and  earnestness  of  Deuter- 
onomy, or  between  the  pastoral  and  limpid  simplicity 
of  Ruth  and  the  repetitious  and  ponderous  narrative 
of  Daniel,  stare  one  in  the  face,  and  seem  to  make 
it  impossible  to  generalize.  In  the  end,  as  I  have 
said,  we  shall  find  that  all  these  narratives  agree 
in  combining  concrete  simplicity  and  deep  earnest- 
ness of  feeling  to  a  degree  which  sets  them  apart 
from  anything  else  in  English  literature;  in  the 
meantime  we  shall  gain  a  deeper  understanding  of 
all  the  Biblical  narrative  by  briefly  examining  these 
contrasts  as  they  appear  in  three  important  types  of 
it  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  Xew  Testament  nar- 
rative I  will  touch  on  later.  We  shall  find  that  these 
three  types  of  Old  Testament  narrative  spring  from 
three  different  ages  of  the  history  and  the  religious 
thought  of  the  Jews,  and  that  the  contrasting  quali- 
ties of  the  different  types  are  to  a  large  extent  ex- 
plicable by  the  different  circumstances  under  which 
they  were  produced.     I  will  discuss  first  that  which 


THE  NARRATIVE  37 

is  earliest  in  time,  then  for  the  sake  of  contrast  that 
which  is  latest,  and  finally  that  which  is  intermediate. 
The  type  of  narrative  that  springs  most  readily 
to  one's  mind  when  one  speaks  of  the  Biblical  nar- 
rative is  the  vivid  kind  of  story  which  for  the  most 
part  fills  GenesiSy  Samuel,  and  Kings.  For  swift- 
ness, for  the  unerring  sense  of  effective  detail,  these 
stories  are  our  standard  in  English.  The  story  of 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  the  fall  of  man,  and  the 
stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  show  us  this 
vivid  narrative  at  its  clearest  and  simplest.  Even  in 
this  vivid  and  simple  narrative,  however,  there  is 
considerable  variety.  The  stories  of  this  type  in 
Genesis  are  pastoral,  almost  idyllic,  in  contrast  to  the 
histories  of  the  bloody  Joab  and  his  slaughter  of 
Amasa  and  Absalom,  or  of  the  primitive  feuds  of 
Gideon  and  Jephthah  in  Judges,  or  of  Elisha  and 
Jehu  and  their  merciless  extermination  of  the  wor- 
shippers of  Baal.  These  later  stories  produce  an 
effect  of  a  stern  reality,  beside  which  the  stories  of 
the  patriarchs  have,  as  has  been  said,  '^  the  freshness 
of  the  elder  world."  Nevertheless  all  of  them  are 
separated  from  the  other  types  of  which  I  shall  speak, 
by  their  vividness,  by  their  intense  interest  in  human 
life,  by  their  being  told  primarily  for  the  interest 
in  the  events  and  in  the  people.  One  thinks  first 
of  all  of  their  simplicity,  clearness,  and  vividness, 


38  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

These  characteristics  can  be  made  more  palpable 
by  putting  an  example  from  the  earliest  type  be- 
side one  from  the  latest  type.  If  one  begins  to  read 
Genesis  with  one's  critical  sense  alert,  the  transition 
from  the  first  to  the  second  chapter  shows  a  sur- 
prising change  of  style  and  of  atmosphere.  The  first 
chapter  is  a  solemn  epitome  of  the  whole  process  of 
the  creation  which  tends  to  fall  into  a  series  of  for- 
mulas, and  which  has  many  repetitions. 

And  God  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the  firma- 
ment of  the  heaven  to  divide  the  day  from  the 
night;  and  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for  seasons, 
and  for  days,  and  years: 

And  let  them  be  for  lights  in  the  firmament  of 
the  heaven  to  give  light  upon  the  earth:  and  it 
was  so. 

And  God  made  two  great  lights;  the  greater  light 
to  rule  the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to  rule  the 
night:  he  made  the  stars  also. 

And  God  set  them  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven 
to  give  light  upon  the  earth, 

And  to  rule  over  the  day  and  over  the  night, 
and  to  divide  the  light  from  the  darkness:  and 
God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fourth 
day.i 

What  is  more  significant  even  than  the  formal  pre- 
cision of  this  chapter  is  the  fact  that  the  belief  un- 
^  Gen.  i.  14-19. 


THE  NARRATIVE  39 

derlying  it  is  an  austere  monotheism:  the  God  who 
performs  these  great  wonders  of  creation  is  a  remote 
and  omnipotent  being. 

In  the  second  chapter,  after  the  fourth  verse,  all 
this  is  changed.  The  creation  of  man  fills  the  centre 
of  interest:  the  creation  of  plants  and  animals  is 
incidental;  the  creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
is  assumed.  The  style  throughout  is  that  of  the  first 
type  of  which  I  have  spoken,  simple,  direct,  vivid  to 
the  point  of  homeliness  in  its  details. 

And  the  Lord  God  said,  It  is  not  good  that  the 
man  should  be  alone;  I  will  make  him  an  help 
meet  for  him. 

And  out  of  the  ground  the  Lord  God  formed 
every  beast  of  the  field,  and  every  fowl  of  the  air; 
and  brought  them  unto  Adam  to  see  what  he  would 
call  them:  and  whatsoever  Adam  called  every 
living  creature,  that  was  the  name  thereof. 

And  Adam  gave  names  to  all  cattle,  and  to  the 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  to  every  beast  of  the  field;  but 
for  Adam  there  was  not  found  an  help  meet  for  him. 

And  the  Lord  God  caused  a  deep  sleep  to  fall 
upon  Adam,  and  he  slept:  and  he  took  one  of  his 
ribs,  and  closed  up  the  flesh  instead  thereof; 

And  the  rib,  which  the  Lord  God  had  taken 
from  man,  made  he  a  woman,  and  brought  her 
unto  the  man. 

And  Adam  said,  This  is  now  bone  of  my  bones, 
and  flesh  of  my  flesh:  she  shall  be  called  Woman, 
because  she  was  taken  out  of  Man. 


40  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  his 
mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife:  and  they 
shall  be  one  flesh. 

And  they  were  both  naked,  the  man  and  his  wife, 
and  were  not  ashamed.^ 

Here,  in  contrast  to  the  first  chapter,  God  is  on 
familiar  terms  with  the  man  whom  he  has  created: 
he  brings  the  beasts  of  the  fields  and  the  fowls  of 
the  air  to  Adam  '^  to  see  what  he  would  call  them  " ; 
and  in  the  third  chapter  he  walks  in  the  garden  "  in 
the  cool  of  the  day.''  One  does  not  need  much 
scrutiny  to  see  the  great  difference  not  only  in  the 
manner  of  writing  but  in  the  mode  of  conceiving 
the  act  of  creation :  where  the  first  chapter  is  stately, 
abstract,  and  reverent,  the  second  is  vivid,  simple, 
and  naive. 

Two  more  examples  will  make  clearer  the  differ- 
ence in  thought  and  substance  between  these  different 
types  of  narrative.  Of  the  two  accounts  of  the 
promise  to  Abraham  the  first  one  begins  as  follows: 

And  when  Abram  was  ninety  years  old  and  nine, 
the  Lord  appeared  to  Abram,  and  said  unto  him, 
I  am  the  Almighty  God;  walk  before  me,  and  be 
thou  perfect. 

And  I  will  make  my  covenant  between  me  and 
thee,  and  will  multiply  thee  exceedingly. 

And  Abram  fell  on  his  face :  and  God  talked  with 

him  saying, 

» Gen.  ii.  18-25. 


THE  NARRATIVE  41 

As  for  me,  behold,  my  covenant  is  with  thee, 
and  thou  shalt  be  a  father  of  many  nations. 

Neither  shall  thy  name  any  more  be  called 
Abram,  but  thy  name  shall  be  Abraham;  for  a 
father  of  many  nations  have  I  made  thee.^ 

The  second  account  begins  with  the  story  of  how 
Abraham  entertained  the  angels  unawares: 

And  the  Lord  appeared  unto  him  in  the  plains 
of  Mamre;  and  he  sat  in  the  tent  door  in  the  heat 
of  the  day; 

And  he  lift  up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and  lo,  three 
men  stood  by  him:  and  when  he  saw  them,  he  ran 
to  meet  them  from  the  tent  door,  and  bowed  him- 
self towards  the  ground, 

And  said,  My  Lord,  if  now  I  have  found  favor  in 
thy  sight  pass  not  away,  I  pray  thee,  from  thy 
servant : 

Let  a  little  water,  I  pray  you,  be  fetched,  and 
wash  your  feet  and  rest  yourselves  under  the 
tree: 

And  I  will  fetch  a  morsel  of  bread,  and  comfort 
ye  your  hearts;  after  that  ye  shall  pass  on:  for 
therefore  are  ye  come  to  your  servant.  And  they 
said.  So  do,  as  thou  hast  said. 

And  Abraham  hastened  into  the  tent  unto 
Sarah,  and  said,  Make  ready  quickly  three  measures 
of  fine  meal,  knead  it,  and  make  cakes  upon  the 
hearth. 

And  Abraham  ran  unto  the  herd,  and  fetcht  a 
^  Gen.  xvii.  1-5. 


42  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

calf  tender  and  good,  and  gave  it  unto  a  young 
man;  and  he  hasted  to  dress  it.^ 

And  it  even  tells  how  the  Lord  disputes  with  Sarah : 

Then  Sarah  denied,  saying,  I  laughed  not;  for  she 
was  afraid.   And  he  said.  Nay ;  but  thou  didst  laugh. 

In  the  simplicity  of  this  story,  even  the  actions  of 
God  are  conceived  with  the  same  homely  concrete- 
ness  as  are  the  dealings  of  the  patriarchs  with  each 
other.  Again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  first  two  chapters 
of  the  book,  we  find  in  contiguous  passages  strongly 
contrasted  types  of  narrative,  the  one  naive,  concrete, 
and  vivid,  the  other  in  comparison  abstract,  stately, 
and  reverent. 

Let  us  consider  more  carefully  the  simple  and  vivid 
narrative.  It  is  characterized  by  a  lively  and  naive 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  human  life,  and  by  natural 
and  unpremeditated  story-telling.  Such  are  the  sim- 
pler of  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs,  the  story  of 
Rebecca  at  the  well,  of  Jacob  and  his  tortuous  deal- 
ings with  his  brother  Esau  and  his  father-in-law 
Laban,  and  the  stories  of  Joseph,  with  that  most 
touching  scene  of  all  where  he  could  no  longer  re- 
frain from  disclosing  himself  to  his  brethren.  In 
other  books  of  the  Bible  we  come  to  examples  of  this 
style  with  its  full  human  interest  in  the  stories  of 
^  Gen.  xviii.  1-7. 


THE  NARRATIVE  43 

Jephthah  and  of  Samson,  in  the  story  of  Saul  seek- 
ing his  father's  asses,  in  the  various  stories  of  David 
and  Saul,  in  the  story  of  David  and  Bathsheba, 
and  of  the  rebellion  of  the  arrogant  Absalom  and  his 
■\vretched  death  at  the  hands  of  Joab,  in  the  stories 
of  Elijah  and  Ahab,  and  in  that  of  Elisha,  Naaman, 
and  Gehazi.  In  all  these  stories  the  interest  lies 
almost  wholly  in  the  actions  and  in  the  people.  They 
show  no  evidence  of  any  pondering  on  the  meaning 
of  history;  the  events  and  the  actors  in  them  are 
sufficient  for  the  narrators.  The  narrative  moves 
directly  and  rapidly,  yet  with  extraordinary  vivid- 
ness of  characterization.  The  contrast  between 
Jacob  and  Esau  is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  this 
compact  portrayal  of  character:  Jacob  farsighted 
and  wily  in  a  peculiarly  Oriental  way,  yet  withal 
sobered  and  deepened  by  his  foresight  of  the  great 
future  which  the  promises  of  Jehovah  had  laid  out 
for  his  race;  Esau  bluff  and  honest,  but  reckless  of 
any  good  beyond  that  of  the  present  moment.  So 
in  the  stories  of  David  and  his  troubles  with  his 
sons:  the  few  chapters  give  us  a  most  vivid  glimpse 
of  this  Oriental  court  of  David,  the  great  warrior 
and  the  farsighted  statesman,  yet  soft  as  a  woman 
in  dealing  with  the  fractious  and  unruly  Absalom. 
And  consider  the  little  glimpse  of  the  bloody  and 
treacherous  Joab  and  his  assassination  of  Amasa: 


44  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And  Joab  said  to  Amasa,  Art  thou  in  health,  my 
brother?  And  Joab  took  Amasa  by  the  beard  with 
the  right  hand  to  kiss  him. 

But  Amasa  took  no  heed  to  the  sword  that  was 
in  Joab's  hand:  so  he  smote  him  therewith  in  the 
fifth  rib,  and  shed  out  his  bowels  to  the  ground, 
and  struck  him  not  again;  and  he  died.  So  Joab 
and  Abishai  his  brother  pursued  after  Sheba  the 
son  of  Bichri.i 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  narrative  style  can  have 
more  of  the  essential  virtues  than  we  find  in  such 
stories  as  these. 

Yet  if  we  knew  only  these  stories  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, we  should  miss  a  notable  element  of  what 
makes  up  our  impression  of  the  Biblical  narrative. 
For  after  all,  that  narrative  is  not  merely  a  standard 
for  vividness;  it  is  also  a  standard  for  depth  of  mean- 
ing and  a  solemn  stateliness  of  style.  For  these 
qualities  one  must  turn  to  the  other  two  of  these 
three  types  of  narrative.  The  latest  of  these,  which 
is  found  chiefly  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  which  we 
may  call  the  priestly,  is  bare  of  vivifying  detail.  The 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  in  comparison  with  the  sec- 
ond is  austere  and  abstract:  by  itself  and  beside  the 
warm  human  interest  of  the  other  stories  it  seems 
lacking  in  life.  It  does  not  scintillate  with  the  words 
1  2  Sam.  XX.  9-10. 


THE  NARRATIVE  45 

and  the  movement  of  living  beings ;  it  sets  forth  the 
newly  created  imiverse  and  the  world  of  the  patri- 
archs as  an  empty  expanse  in  which  the  Lord  God 
of  Israel  stands  at  a  remote  and  awful  distance. 
And  if  one  follows  out  the  passages  in  which  this 
type  of  narrative  occurs  through  the  Pentateuch  one 
gets  only  an  outline  of  the  history,  and  an  outline 
in  which  religious  institutions  and  ceremonies  over- 
shadow the  individuals  of  the  race.  Examples  of 
this  bare  but  solemn  narrative  are  the  story  of  the 
creation  in  Genesis  i,  of  God's  covenant  with  ]^oah 
after  the  Flood,  of  the  covenant  and  promise  to 
Abraham  in  Genesis  xvii,  of  Abraham's  purchase  of 
the  field  of  Ephron  the  Hittite  at  Machpelah  for  a 
buryingplace  in  Genesis  xxiii,  and  of  the  Lord's 
commission  to  Moses  to  lead  the  children  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt  in  Exodus  vi.  Besides  these  and  many 
other  passages  of  narrative,  the  great  mass  of  laws 
and  liturgical  prescriptions  and  the  exhaustive  gene- 
alogies and  chronology  scattered  through  these  books 
of  the  Pentateuch  belong  to  the  same  priestly  source, 
and  add  their  solemn  precision  and  formality  to 
the  general  effect.  Yet  throughout  this  bare  and 
unimaginative  type  of  narrative  is  marked  by  a 
dignity  and  elevation  which  go  a  long  way  to  color 
one's  impression  of  the  Biblical  narrative  as  a  whole. 
The  very  austerity  of  its  conception  of  creation  and 


46  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

of  history  lifts  one  above  the  petty  concerns  of  daily 
life. 

At  the  same  time  the  repetitiousness  of  style,  which 
is  one  of  its  characteristics,  establishes  a  strength  of 
rhythm  which  deepens  and  emphasizes  the  meaning 
of  the  history. 

And  Moses  spake  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  and 
every  one  of  the  princes  gave  him  a  rod  apiece, 
for  each  prince  one,  according  to  their  fathers' 
houses,  even  twelve  rods :  and  the  rod  of  Aaron  was 
among  their  rods. 

And  Moses  laid  up  the  rods  before  the  Lord  in 
the  tabernacle  of  witness. 

And  it  came  to  pass,  that  on  the  morrow  Moses 
went  into  the  tabernacle  of  witness;  and,  behold, 
the  rod  of  Aaron  for  the  house  of  Levi  was  budded, 
and  brought  forth  buds,  and  bloomed  blossoms, 
and  yielded  almonds. 

And  Moses  brought  out  all  the  rods  from  before 
the  Lord  unto  all  the  children  of  Israel:  and  they 
looked,  and  took  every  man  his  rod.^ 

If  this  solemn  rhythm  colors  and  deepens  even  such 
a  simple  narrative  as  this,  when  it  appears  in  a 
statement  of  the  promises  to  the  chosen  people  of 
God,  it  adds  indefinitely  to  the  impressiveness  and 
weight  of  the  narrative.  Here  is  part  of  the  passage 
in  Exodus  where  the  Lord  gives  to  Moses  the  formal 
^  Num.  xvii.  6-9. 


THE  NARRATIVE  47 

commission  to  lead  the  people  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage : 

And  I  have  also  heard  the  groaning  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  whom  the  Egyptians  keep  in  bond- 
age; and  I  have  remembered  my  covenant. 

Wherefore  say  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  I 
am  the  Lord,  and  I  will  bring  you  out  from  under 
the  burdens  of  the  Egyptians,  and  I  w^ill  rid  you 
out  of  their  bondage,  and  I  will  redeem  you  with  a 
stretched  out  arm,  and  with  great  judgments: 

And  I  will  take  you  to  me  for  a  people,  and  I  will 
be  to  you  a  God:  and  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  the 
Lord  your  God,  which  bringeth  you  out  from  under 
the  burdens  of  the  Egyptians. 

And  I  will  bring  you  in  unto  the  land  concerning 
the  which  I  did  sw^ear  to  give  it  to  Abraham,  to 
Isaac,  and  to  Jacob;  and  I  will  give  it  to  you  for 
an  heritage:  I  am  the  Lord.^ 

In  the  English  the  portions  of  the  histories  which 
come  from  this  source  have  always  this  sonorousness 
and  fullness  of  sound.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in 
the  lists  of  words  and  phrases  which  are  given  in  the 
manuals  as  being  characteristic  of  this  source  there 
is  a  larger  proportion  of  Latinate  words  than  else- 
where in  the  Bible.  Here  are  a  few  of  them  from 
the  list  in  Driver's  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of 
the  Old  Testament,  which,  it  may  be  noted,  is  based 
on  a  study  of  the  Hebrew :  to  he  fruitful^  to  multiply, 
'  Ex.  vi.  5-8. 


48  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

according  to  their  generations ^  everlasting  covenant, 
princes  of  the  congregation,  according  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  Lord.  Where  there  are  many  such  words 
the  large  proportion  of  open  vowels  and  liquid  con- 
sonants makes  the  language  almost  intone  itself. 
This  rich  coloring  of  this  priestly  type  of  narrative 
is  an  important  part  of  one's  total  impression  of  the 
style  of  the  Bible:  for  a  necessary  element  in  that 
impression  is  dignity  and  solemnity.  The  great 
stretches  of  ecclesiastical  law  in  Exodus,  Leviticus, 
and  Numbers  are  arid  so  far  as  any  literary  interest 
is  concerned ;  yet  even  in  the  dry  details  of  the  sacri- 
fices and  of  the  clothing  of  the  priests  the  style  has 
often  a  richness  of  coloring  and  a  consequent  glow  of 
feeling  which  are  curiously  out  of  keeping  with  the 
character  of  the  substance. 

The  third  type  of  narrative  which  must  be  taken 
into  account  in  forming  an  estimate  of  the  Biblical 
narrative  as  a  whole  is  that  of  Deuteronomy  and 
the  analogous  passages  in  the  other  histories;  in  time 
of  origin  this  is  intermediate  between  the  other  two. 
The  amount  of  narrative  in  Deuteronomy  itself  is 
comparatively  small,  but  the  influence  of  its  very 
individual  style  has-  spread  through  other  books. 
This  influence  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  priestly 
type  of  narrative  in  deepening  and  strengthening  the 
feeling.      Here,  however,  the  style  has  a  power  of 


THE   NARRATIVE  49 

sustaining  periods  and  a  sonorous  and  flowing  elo- 
quence, unlike  that  of  any  other  writing  of  the  Old 
Testament : 

But  the  Lord  hath  taken  you,  and  brought  you 
forth  out  of  the  iron  furnace,  even  out  of  Egypt, 
to  be  unto  him  a  people  of  inheritance,  as  ye  are 
this  day. 

Furthermore  the  Lord  was  angry  with  me  for 
your  sakes,  and  sware  that  I  should  not  go  over 
Jordan,  and  that  I  should  not  go  in  unto  that  good 
land,  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee  for  an 
inheritance : 

But  I  must  die  in  this  land,  I  must  not  go  over 
Jordan :  but  ye  shall  go  over,  and  possess  that  good 
land. 

Take  heed  unto  yourselves,  lest  ye  forget  the 
covenant  of  the  Lord  your  God,  which  he  made 
with  you,  and  make  you  a  graven  image,  or  the 
likeness  of  any  thing,  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
hath  forbidden  thee. 

For  the  Lord  thy  God  is  a  consuming  fire,  even  a 
jealous  God.^ 

Such  a  style  as  this  clearly  adds  an  important  ele- 
ment to  the  great  work  in  which  it  is  contained. 
Here  are  freedom  and  a  vivid  instinct  for  fact,  joined 
with  a  sonorous  and  elevated  diction  to  give  expres- 
sion to  a  high  and  austere  conception  of  religion. 
There  is  no  writer  in  the  Bible  whose  style  is  more 
1  Deut.  iv.  20-24. 


50  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

individual  and  distinct  than  the  great  unknown 
prophet  who  wrote  the  original  Deuteronomy,  and 
both  his  lofty  conceptions  of  the  obligations  of  Israel 
to  Jehovah  and  his  rolling  and  eloquent  style  made 
a  deep  impression  on  the  Jews  of  the  generations 
immediately  before  the  Exile  and  during  the  next 
two  or  three  centuries.  Writers  eager  to  impress  his 
teachings  on  their  contemporaries  recomposed  the  his- 
tory for  the  period  covered  by  our  books  of  Judges, 
Samuel,  and  Kings  in  order  to  illustrate  and  burn 
in  this  theory  of  history,  that  the  prosperity  or  dis- 
tress of  the  children  of  Israel  sprang  immediately 
from  their  obedience  or  disobedience  to  the  com- 
mandments of  the  just  and  merciful  God  who  had 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  into  a  land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey:  and  in  recomposing 
the  history  they  added  many  short  passages  to  make 
the  lesson  unmistakable.  After  the  manner  of  all 
writers  of  antiquity  such  passages  are  apt  to  take  the 
form  of  speeches  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  chief 
actors  in  the  history,  as,  for  example,  the  first  fare- 
well of  Joshua,  in  Joshua  xxiii,  the  farewell  of 
Samuel  in  1  Samuel  xii,  and  the  prayer  of  Solo- 
mon at  the  dedication  of  the  temple.  All  such  pas- 
sages, and  there  are  many  of  them  besides  such 
speeches,  by  their  sonorous  phrasing  and  their  roll- 
ing periods  add  to  the  earnestness  and  elevation  of 


THE  NARRATIVE  51 

the  books  in  which  they  are  imbedded.  Like  the 
narrative  of  the  priestly  type  with  its  austere  dig- 
nity and  abstract  and  stately  elevation,  Deuteronomy 
and  the  analogous  passages  in  the  other  books  help 
to  deepen  and  enrich  the  impression  made  by  the 
narrative  books  as  a  whole. 

I  hope  that  this  very  brief  review  of  so  huge  a 
field  will  have  sufficed  to  make  clear  the  fact  that 
these  stories  of  the  Bible,  in  spite  of  their  general 
effect  of  simple  and  vivid  clearness  suffused  and  en- 
riched by  a  singular  depth  and  earnestness  of  feel- 
ing, are  made  up  of  distinct  elements  which  can  be 
discovered  and  isolated  by  analysis.  This  analysis 
has  been  one  of  the  chief  results  of  the  great  school 
of  modern  scholarship  which  is  commonly  known  as 
the  Higher  Criticism:  and  it  has  shown  in  the  most 
interesting  way  that  not  only  deep  and  essential 
differences  in  religious  thought  but  purely  literary 
differences  in  style  in  the  English  Bible  can  be  ex- 
plained by  the  diverse  historical  circumstances  which 
produced  the  original  books.  The  clear  and  unpre- 
meditated directness  of  the  simpler  stories  of  the 
Old  Testament,  the  eager  and  rolling  eloquence  of 
Deuteronomy,  and  the  formal  and  stately  austerity 
of  the  priestly  narrative  all  are  explicable,  in  part 
at  any  rate,  by  the  conditions  from  which  they 
sprang.     For  in  their  origins  these  three  types  of 


52  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

narrative  represent  three  different  stages  of  the  his- 
tory and  of  the  religious  thought  of  the  people  of 
Israel.  Almost  all  of  the  simple  and  vivid  narra- 
tive has  come  down  from  the  early  times,  before  the 
great  prophets  Amos,  Hosea,  and  Isaiah  had  set 
forth  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah. 
In  these  stories,  God  seems  to  be  thought  of  almost 
as  an  elder  brother  walking  on  the  earth  and  guard- 
ing his  chosen  people.  The  idea  which  these  early 
generations  held  of  Jehovah  and  of  their  relation 
to  him  is  illustrated  by  the  speech  of  Rab-shakeh 
to  the  men  of  Hezekiah  when  the  former  was  be- 
sieging Jerusalem: 

.  .  .  Hearken  not  unto  Hezekiah,  when  he 
persuadeth  you,  saying,  The  Lord  will  deliver  us. 

Hath  any  of  the  gods  of  the  nations  delivered  at 
all  his  land  out  of  the  hand  of  the  king  of  Assyria? 

Where  are  the  gods  of  Hamath,  and  of  Arpad? 
where  are  the  gods  of  Sepharvaim,  Hena,  and 
Ivah?  have  they  delivered  Samaria  out  of  mine 
hand? 

Who  are  they  among  all  the  gods  of  the  countries, 
that  have  delivered  their  country  out  of  mine 
hand,  that  the  Lord  should  deliver  Jerusalem  out 
of  mine  hand?  ^ 

This  whole  region,  as  we  have  seen,  held  that  the  god 

of  each  nation  was  charged  with  the  protection  of 

1  2  Kings  xviii.  32-35. 


THE   NARRATIVE  53 

that  nation  against  other  nations  and  their  gods :  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  this  was  still  the 
controlling  idea  of  the  religion  of  Israel  down  to 
the  eighth  century  b.c.  Thus  the  religion  from 
which  most  of  this  simplest  type  of  narrative  sprang 
was  that  of  a  people  in  its  childhood,  and  of  a  people 
who  in  spiritual  insight  had  not  yet  risen  above  their 
neighbors.  Then  in  the  eighth  century  b.c,  when 
the  shadow  of  the  great  empire  of  Assyria  began  to 
darken  the  horizon  of  Israel,  the  new  light  came; 
and  it  brought  as  one  of  its  consequences  a  change  in 
the  character  of  the  literature  of  Israel.  IN'ow  it  was 
revealed  to  the  prophets  that  their  people  were  the 
servants  of  a  God  who  controlled  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  and  who  used  the  heathen  to  chastise  Israel 
for  its  unrighteousness  and  its  backsliding;  and  in 
the  next  century  Deuteronomy  brought  this  new  and 
inspiring  ideal  to  an  almost  legal  formulation.  Each 
of  these  stages  of  revelation  had  its  effects  on  the 
form  and  even  on  the  style  of  the  narrative. 

An  even  greater  change  followed  the  revelation 
made  in  the  sixth  century  b.c.  that  the  God  of  the 
Jews  was  the  one  God,  who  had  made  the  heavens 
and  the  earth,  and  all  that  therein  is.  This  high 
thought  stimulated  Ezekiel  to  propoimd  an  ideal 
scheme  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  and  the  re- 
constitution  of  its  services  in  a  manner  befitting  the 


54  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

God  of  the  whole  earth.  He  was  also  a  priest,  prob- 
ably a  chief  founder  of  that  school  of  priestly  writing 
which  produced  the  latest  of  the  three  types  of  narra- 
tive we  have  been  considering;  and  his  prophecies 
and  visions  witness  to  the  immense  stimulus  given  to 
the  priests  as  a  class  by  this  consciousness  that  they 
were  the  special  servants  of  the  one  God.  The  vision 
which  occupies  the  last  nine  chapters  of  his  book  is 
proof  of  the  enthusiasm  with  which  they  entered  into 
the  work  and  the  spiritual  elevation  with  which  they 
undertook  it: 

Afterward  he  brought  me  to  the  gate,  even  the 
gate  that  looketh  toward  the  east: 

And,  behold,  the  glory  of  the  God  of  Israel 
came  from  the  way  of  the  east:  and  his  voice  was 
like  a  noise  of  many  waters:  and  the  earth  shined 
with  his  glory. 

And  it  was  according  to  the  appearance  of 
the  vision  which  I  saw,  even  according  to  the 
vision  that  I  saw  when  I  came  to  destroy  the 
city:  and  the  visions  were  like  the  vision  that 
I  saw  by  the  river  Chebar;  and  I  fell  upon  my 
face. 

And  the  glory  of  the  Lord  came  into  the  house 
by  the  way  of  the  gate  whose  prospect  is  toward 
the  east. 

So  the  spirit  took  me  up,  and  brought  me  into 
the  inner  court;  and,  behold,  the  glory  of  the  Lord 
filled  the  house. 


THE  NARRATIVE  55 

And  I  heard  him  speaking  to  me  out  of  the  house; 
and  the  man  stood  by  me. 

And  he  said  unto  me,  Son  of  man,  the  place  of 
my  throne,  and  the  place  of  the  soles  of  my  feet, 
where  I  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  the  children  of 
Israel  forever,  and  my  holy  name,  shall  the  house 
of  Israel  no  more  defile,  neither  they,  nor  their 
kings,  by  their  whoredom,  nor  by  the  carcases 
of  their  kings  in  their  high  places.^ 

In  estimating  the  legal  and  historical  writing  of  the 
school  of  the  priests  during  the  Exile  and  the 
century  succeeding,  one  must  not  leave  out  of  ac- 
count this  fact  that  they  were  filled  with  this  new 
and  uplifting  conception  of  their  religion  and  of  the 
unique  place  which  their  nation  in  consequence  oc- 
cupied among  the  peoples  of  the  earth.  It  is  this 
great  idea  which  fills  the  set  formulas  of  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  with  such  nobility  and  which  im- 
parts depth  and  richness  of  feeling  to  what  is  other- 
wise bare  and  formal  throughout  this  priestly  type 
of  the  narrative.  Thus  it  came  about  that  a  style 
of  writing  which  seems  so  remote  from  the  warmth 
and  living  vividness  of  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs 
or  the  history  of  David  had  a  peculiar  rich  depth 
of  expressiveness;  for  the  later  generations  of  the 
Jews  were  able  to  feel  the  power  of  their  God  in  a 
way  impossible  to  their  forefathers,  who  had  not 
*  Ezek.  xliii.  1-7. 


56  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

passed  through  the  fiery  furnace  of  affliction  to  so 
tioble  a  conception  of  his  nature. 

Speaking  very  broadly,  then,  we  may  say  that  the 
limpid  simplicity  and  the  instinct  for  living  and 
vivifying  detail  in  the  first  of  our  three  types  of 
narrative  reflect  the  habits  of  thought  of  a  people 
whose  interests  lay  in  the  present,  whose  religious 
life  was  simple  and  primitive;  that  the  broader  view 
of  Deuteronomy  and  its  intensity  of  feeling  reflect 
a  time  when  Judah  in  times  of  bitter  and  seemingly 
hopeless  distress  rose  to  a  view  of  history  and  a  con- 
ception of  religion  that  were  both  more  spiritual  and 
intellectually  far  in  advance  of  the  writers  of  the 
simpler  stories;  and  that  finally,  in  the  latest  type 
of  narrative  we  have  the  still  nobler  and  more  spir- 
itual thought  of  a  generation  which  has  soared  above 
the  mythology  of  the  great  nations  that  held  them 
captive  and  the  unthinking  anthropomorphism  of 
their  own  ancestors  to  the  austere  and  uplifting  con- 
ception of  Jehovah  as  the  one  and  only  God  who 
had  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  The  spirit  and 
ideas  of  each  of  these  periods  are  preserved  in  the 
rich  mosaic  of  the  historical  books  of  our  Old  Tes- 
tament. 

Yet  in  the  end  we  must  remember  that  analysis 
is  not  literature:  and  that  although  this  analysis  is 
worth  making  since  it  helps  one  to  see  perspective 


THE  NARRATIVE  57 

instead  of  a  flat  surface,  yet  in  the  end  the  natural 
way  of  reading  is  the  true  way  for  literature.  I  may 
compare  one's  original  way  of  reading  these  stories 
to  the  effect  of  a  Chinese  picture,  where  there  are 
rich  colors  and  strongly  outlined  figures,  but  no  dis- 
tinction of  foreground  and  background,  since  there 
is  no  perspective.  But  after  following  out  the 
analysis,  one's  reading  is  like  a  picture  which,  keep- 
ing the  rich  color  and  the  sharp  outline,  now  has 
depth  and  distance,  so  that  one  sees  the  thought 
of  age  before  age  of  the  people  of  Israel,  reaching 
back  into  the  mists  of  antiquity,  as  blue  mountains 
peer  over  one  another's  shoulders  off  to  the  dim 
horizon.  Thus  the  clear  and  vivid  simplicity  of  the 
earlier  narratives  is  deepened  and  ennobled  by  the 
searching  earnestness  of  the  later  ones;  and  the 
austere  bareness  of  the  latter  is  vivified  by  the  warm 
human  interest  of  the  former. 


n 


Beside  any  other  narrative  in  English  literature, 
however,  the  differences  between  these  three  types 
of  narrative  become  insignificant.  In  the  first  place 
they  are  separated  from  us  by  a  great  gulf  in  the 
manner  of  thought.  That  difference  I  shall  discuss 
more  fully  in  the  chapter  on  the  wisdom  books  of 


58  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  Old  Testament :  but  one  can  feel  it  if  one  realizes 
that  the  first  two  chapters  of  Genesis  are,  each  in 
its  own  way,  statements  of  what  we  should  call 
theories  of  the  universe.  It  seems  a  far  cry  from  the 
story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  the  serpent  tempt- 
ing Eve  to  the  nebular  hypothesis  and  the  theory 
of  evolution;  yet  in  purpose  they  are  alike:  each  is 
an  effort  which  men  have  made  to  explain  to  them- 
selves how  the  universe  in  which  they  live  came  into 
being.  Yet  though  these  theories  of  Genesis  are  sep- 
arated by  a  gulf  from  modern  science,  nevertheless 
the  writer  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  reached  an 
intellectual  height  far  above  that  of  the  contem- 
porary writers  of  Babylonia,  for  whom  the  creation 
of  the  world  sprang  from  the  tangle  of  an  elaborate 
pantheon.  There  is  no  more  striking  proof  of  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  religion  of  Israel  than  the 
way  in  which  the  priests  of  this  small  and  oppressed 
people  rose  above  the  fogs  of  mythology  and  re- 
duced its  confusion  to  the  terms  of  a  pure  and  simple 
monotheism.  They  still  had  to  phrase  their  under- 
standing of  the  creation  in  the  form  of  a  narrative, 
for  as  we  shall  see  they  had  no  other  way  either  of 
thinking  or  of  expressing  it;  but  even  intellectually 
this  simplification  is  a  large  advance  on  the  mytho- 
logical confusion  of  other  Semitic  nations  of  the 
period. 


THE   NARRATIVE  59 

In  the  same  way  these  Hebrew  writers  had  also 
to  phrase  what  we  should  call  theories  of  history  in 
the  narrative  form.  When  they  wished  to  set  forth 
their  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  history  they 
inserted  a  compact  retrospect,  generally  putting  it 
into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  actors.  The  character 
of  these  additions  depends  on  the  age  from  which 
they  come,  and  reflects  the  successive  advances  which, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  the  Jews  made  in  their  under- 
standing of  the  nature  of  Jehovah  and  of  their  re- 
lation to  him.  The  earliest  of  them  go  back  to  the 
century  after  the  great  prophets  Amos,  Hosea,  and 
Isaiah  had  declared  that  the  God  of  Israel  ruled  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  that  he  demanded 
righteousness  from  his  people.  The  destruction  of 
Samaria  by  the  Assyrians  in  722  B.C.  came  as  an 
overwhelming  proof  of  this  doctrine;  and  the  more 
enlightened  among  the  Jews,  beginning  to  meditate 
on  the  history  of  their  race,  saw  the  events  of  their 
own  times  bound  up  with  the  purposes  of  Jehovah 
in  past  and  in  future  ages.  In  consequence  their 
history  took  on  for  them  a  fresh  and  inspiring  mean- 
ing. Examples  of  this  new  conception  may  be  found 
in  the  promises  added  to  the  story  of  Abraham 
and  his  sacrifice  of  Isaac  in  Genesis  xxii,  and 
in  the  commission  given  to  Moses  at  the  burning 
bush  in  Exodus  Hi;  it  is  set  forth  most  distinctly 


60  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

in  the  second  farewell  of  Joshua  to  the  people  of 
Israel. 

And  Joshua  said  unto  all  the  people,  Thus  saith 
the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  Your  fathers  dwelt  on  the 
other  side  of  the  flood  in  old  times,  even  Terah, 
the  father  of  Abraham,  and  the  father  of  Nachor: 
and  they  served  other  gods. 

And  I  took  your  father  Abraham  from  the  other 
side  of  the  flood,  and  led  him  throughout  all  the 
land  of  Canaan,  and  multiplied  his  seed,  and  gave 
him  Isaac. 

And  I  gave  unto  Isaac  Jacob  and  Esau:  and  I 
gave  unto  Esau  Mount  Seir,  to  possess  it ;  but  Jacob 
and  his  children  went  down  into  Egypt. 

I  sent  Moses  also  and  Aaron,  and  I  plagued 
Egypt,  according  to  that  which  I  did  among  them: 
and  afterward  I  brought  you  out. 

And  I  brought  your  fathers  out  of  Egypt:  and 
ye  came  unto  the  sea;  and  the  Egyptians  pursued 
after  your  fathers  with  chariots  and  horsemen 
unto  the  Red  sea. 

And  when  they  cried  unto  the  Lord,  he  put 
darkness  between  you  and  the  Egyptians,  and 
brought  the  sea  upon  them,  and  covered  them; 
and  your  eyes  have  seen  what  I  have  done  in  Egypt : 
and  ye  dwelt  in  the  wilderness  a  long  season. 

And  I  brought  you  into  the  land  of  the  Amorites, 
which  dwelt  on  the  other  side  Jordan;  and  they 
fought  with  you:  and  I  gave  them  into  your  hand, 
that  ye  might  possess  their  land;  and  I  destroyed 
them  from  before  you. 


THE   NARRATIVE  61 

Then  Balak  the  son  of  Zippor,  king  of  Moab, 
arose  and  warred  against  Israel,  and  sent  and 
called  Balaam  the  son  of  Beor  to  curse  you: 

But  I  would  not  hearken  unto  Balaam;  there- 
fore he  blessed  you  still :  so  I  delivered  you  out  of 
his  hand. 

And  ye  went  over  Jordan,  and  came  unto  Jericho: 
and  the  men  of  Jericho  fought  against  you,  the 
Amorites,  and  the  Perizzites,  and  the  Canaanites, 
and  the  Hittites,  and  the  Girgashites,  the  Hivites, 
and  the  Jebusites;  and  I  delivered  them  into  your 
hand. 

And  I  sent  the  hornet  before  you,  which  drave 
them  out  from  before  you,  even  the  two  kings 
of  the  Amorites;  but  not  with  thy  sword,  nor  with 
thy  bow. 

And  I  have  given  you  a  land  for  which  ye  did 
not  labour,  and  cities  which  ye  built  not,  and  ye 
dwell  in  them;  of  the  vineyards  and  oliveyards 
which  ye  planted  not  do  ye  eat. 

Now  therefore  fear  the  Lord,  and  serve  him  in 
sincerity  and  in  truth:  and  put  away  the  gods 
which  your  fathers  served  on  the  other  side  of  the 
flood,  and  in  Egypt;  and  serve  ye  the  Lord. 

And  if  it  seem  evil  unto  you  to  serve  the  Lord, 
choose  you  this  day  whom  ye  will  serve;  whether 
the  gods  which  your  fathers  served  that  were  on 
the  other  side  of  the  flood,  or  the  gods  of  the 
Amorites,  in  whose  land  ye  dwell:  but  as  for  me 
and  my  house,  we  will  serve  the  Lord. 

And  the  people  answered  and  said,  God  forbid 


62  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

that  we  should  forsake  the  Lord,  to  serve  other 
gods. 

And  Joshua  said  unto  the  people,  Ye  cannot 
serve  the  Lord:  for  he  is  an  holy  God;  he  is  a  jealous 
God;  he  will  not  forgive  your  transgressions  nor 
your  sins. 

And  the  people  said   unto  Joshua,  Nay;  but 
we  will  serve  the  Lord.^ 

In  all  the  passages  of  this  type  and  period  there  is 
a  peculiar  freshness  of  thought  and  feeling:  it  is  as 
if  the  writers  were  standing  awestruck  in  the  light 
of  a  new  dawn  which  had  made  for  them  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth ;  or  as  if  they  had  struggled 
to  a  Pisgah  height  from  which  they  saw  history 
stretched  out  before  them  and  behind  with  a  new 
inspiring  significance. 

A  century  later  these  explanatory  additions  to  the 
history  come  almost  wholly  from  Deuterbnomist 
writers.  The  conception  is  in  general  the  same  as 
that  of  the  passage  which  I  have  just  quoted;  but 
the  statement  of  it  shows  a  certain  definiteness  and 
crystallizing,  and  the  phrasing  generally  has  a  tend- 
ency towards  fixed  and  regular  formulas.  This 
developed  and  established  theory  of  history  is  set 
forth  compactly  in  2  Kings  xvii,  where  the  Deuter- 
»  Josh.  xxiv.  2-16,  19,  21. 


THE   NARRATIVE  63 

onomist  editors  of  the  book  pass  judgment  on  ^N'orth 
Israel  after  the  fall  of  Samaria: 

In  the  ninth  year  of  Hoshea  the  king  of  Assyria 
took  Samaria,  and  carried  Israel  away  into  Assyria, 
and  placed  them  in  Halah  and  in  Habor  by  the 
river  of  Gozan,  and  in  the  cities  of  the  Medes. 

For  so  it  was,  that  the  children  of  Israel  had 
sinned  against  the  Lord  their  God,  which  had 
brought  them  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  from 
under  the  hand  of  Pharaoh  king  of  Egypt,  and  had 
feared  other  gods, 

And  walked  in  the  statutes  of  the  heathen,  whom 
the  Lord  cast  out  from  before  the  children  of  Israel, 
and  of  the  kings  of  Israel,  which  they  had  made. 

And  the  children  of  Israel  did  secretly  those 
things  that  were  not  right  against  the  Lord  their 
God,  and  they  built  them  high  places  in  all  their 
cities,  from  the  tower  of  the  watchmen  to  the 
fenced  city. 

And  they  set  them  up  images  and  groves  in  every 
high  hill,  and  under  every  green  tree: 

And  there  they  burnt  incense  in  all  the  high 
places,  as  did  the  heathen  whom  the  Lord  carried 
away  before  them;  and  wrought  wicked  things  to 
provoke  the  Lord  to  anger: 

For  they  served  idols,  whereof  the  Lord  had  said 
unto  them.  Ye  shall  not  do  this  thing. 

Yet  the  Lord  testified  against  Israel,  and  against 
Judah,  by  all  the  prophets,  and  by  all  the  seers, 
saying.  Turn  ye  from  your  evil  ways,  and  keep  my 
commandments  and  my  statutes,  according  to  all 


64  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  law  which  I  commanded  your  fathers,  and 
which  I  sent  to  you  by  my  servants  the  prophets. 

Notwithstanding  they  would  not  hear,  but 
hardened  their  necks,  like  to  the  neck  of  their 
fathers,  that  did  not  believe  in  the  Lord  their 
God. 

And  they  rejected  his  statutes,  and  his  covenant 
that  he  made  with  their  fathers,  and  his  testimonies 
which  he  testified  against  them;  and  they  followed 
vanity,  and  became  vain,  and  went  after  the 
heathen  that  were  round  about  them,  concerning 
whom  the  Lord  had  charged  them,  that  they  should 
not  do  like  them. 

And  they  left  all  the  commandments  of  the  Lord 
their  God,  and  made  them  molten  images,  even 
two  calves,  and  made  a  grove,  and  worshipped  all 
the  host  of  heaven,  and  served  Baal. 

And  they  caused  their  sons  and  their  daughters 
to  pass  through  the  fire,  and  used  divination  and 
enchantments,  and  sold  themselves  to  do  evil  in 
the  sight  of  the  Lord,  to  provoke  him  to  anger. 

Therefore  the  Lord  was  very  angry  with  Israel, 
and  removed  them  out  of  his  sight :  there  was  none 
left  but  the  tribe  of  Judah  only.^ 

The  book  of  Judges,  in  its  original  form,  was  com- 
posed to  illustrate  and  prove  this  conception  of 
history,  which  is  set  forth  compactly  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  book  in  chapter  iii;  and  it  is  also  the 
substance  of  many  of  the  speeches  put  into  the  mouths 
»  2  Kings  xvii.  6-18. 


THE   NARRATIVE  65 

of  the  great  men  of  Israel.  The  first  farewell  of 
Joshua,  the  farewell  of  Samuel,  the  prayer  of  Sol- 
omon at  the  dedication  of  the  temple,  all,  as  we  have 
seen,  sum  up  the  way  in  which  this  school  of  writers 
understood  their  history.  All  of  these  passages,  it 
will  be  noticed,  are  put  in  narrative  form. 

The  additions  made  by  the  priestly  writers  after 
the  Exile,  though  still  narrative  in  form,  reduce  the 
narrative  to  its  simplest  terms.  The  covenant  of 
God  with  Abraham  in  Genesis  xvii,  which  I  have 
already  quoted,  as  in  a  case  in  point: 

And  when  Abram  was  ninety  years  old  and  nine, 
the  Lord  appeared  to  Abram,  and  said  unto  him, 
I  am  the  Almighty  God;  walk  before  me,  and  be 
thou  perfect. 

And  I  will  make  my  covenant  between  me  and 
thee,  and  will  multiply  thee  exceedingly. 

And  Abram  fell  on  his  face:  and  God  talked  with 
him. 

Here  the  ascription  to  God  of  actual  talk  with  men 
is  reduced  to  the  simplest  form;  it  is  not  amplified 
with  vi\dfying  detail  as  in  the  case  of  the  earlier 
stories;  and  the  writer  seems  to  use  it  almost  as  a 
formula.  Even  nearer  to  an  actual  abstraction  is 
the  solemn  commission  to  Moses: 

And  God  spake  unto  Moses,  and  said  unto  him, 
I  am  the  Lord: 

And   I  appeared   unto   Abraham,   unto   Isaac, 


66  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

and  unto  Jacob,  by  the  name  of  God  Almighty, 
but  by  my  name  Jehovah  was  I  not  known  to 
them. 

And  I  have  also  established  my  covenant  with 
them,  to  give  them  the  land  of  Canaan,  the  land 
of  their  pilgrimage,  wherein  they  were  strangers. 

And  I  have  also  heard  the  groaning  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  whom  the  Egyptians  keep  in  bond- 
age; and  I  have  remembered  my  covenant. 

Wherefore  say  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  I  am 
the  Lord,  and  I  will  bring  you  out  from  under 
the  burdens  of  the  Egyptians,  and  I  will  rid  you 
out  of  their  bondage,  and  I  will  redeem  you  with 
a  stretched  out  arm,  and  with  great  judgments.^ 

In  the  earlier  sources  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appears 
to  Moses  out  of  the  burning  bush;  and  in  another 
chapter  of  the  same  origin  the  Lord  turns  Moses'  rod 
into  a  serpent,  and  then  makes  his  hand  leprous  and 
turns  it  again  as  his  other  flesh.  In  comparison  with 
such  passages,  this  which  I  have  quoted  is  as  ab- 
stract as  it  can  be  and  still  remain  narrative.  Like 
Genesis  i  this  passage  approaches  the  very  edge  of 
complete  abstraction,  but  it  does  not  pass  over  it. 
In  such  a  place  the  writer  of  a  modern  history  would 
abandon  narrative  and  take  to  exposition  or  argument 
or  some  kindred  mode  of  philosophizing.  These  an- 
cient writers  had  no  such  resource :  and  in  this  lack 
» Ex.  vi.  2-6. 


THE  NARRATIVE  67 

is  to  be  seen  a  profound  and  essential  difference  in 
the  literature  of  the  Old  Testament  from  our  litera- 
ture of  to-day.  The  Hebrew  language  had,  as  we 
shall  see  directly,  no  forms  to  express  analysis  and 
generalization;  and  when  these  ancient  writers  tried 
to  set  forth  the  way  in  which  the  universe  came  into 
being  and  history  developed,  of  necessity  they  told 
of  it  in  a  story.  Some  of  these  stories  are  primitive 
to  the  extent  of  anthropomorphism;  and  looking  at 
them  as  explanations  of  the  universe,  one  feels  what 
a  long  way  back  we  must  go  to  reach  the  frame  of 
mind  of  the  people  who  made  them ;  yet  such  stories 
are  only  extreme  examples  of  the  primitive  simplicity 
of  thought  which  shows  even  in  the  priestly  writings 
after  the  Exile,  and  which  helps  to  explain  both  the 
difference  of  this  literature  from  our  modem  writ- 
ing and  its  perennial  power. 


nr 


I  shall  recur  to  this  subject  in  each  of  the  next  two 
chapters:  in  the  meantime  we  can  get  light  on  the 
distinctive  simplicity  of  these  narratives  and  of  all 
the  Old  Testament  literature  by  a  brief  consideration 
of  the  nature  of  the  Hebrew  language.    In  this  chap- 


68  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

ter  I  shall  speak  of  the  general  structure  of  the  lan- 
guage ;  the  character  of  the  vocabulary  I  shall  discuss 
in  the  chapter  on  the  poetry. 

Eenan  summed  up  the  essential  difference  in  the 
structure  of  the  Hebrew  from  our  modern  languages 
when  he  pointed  out  that  Hebrew  "  lacked  one  of 
the  degrees  of  combination  which  we  hold  necessary 
for  the  complete  expression  of  the  thought.  To  join 
the  words  in  a  proposition  is  as  far  as  they  go ;  they 
made  no  effort  to  apply  the  same  operation  to  the 
propositions."  ^  In  other  words,  the  old  Hebrew  lan- 
guage never  reached  the  point  at  which  it  was  able  to 
construct  sustained  periods  or  closely  linked  chains 
of  thought.  Their  only  means  of  joining  facts  and 
ideas  together  was  the  conjunction  vaVj  which  was  in 
itself  hardly  more  definite  than  a  gesture  to  indicate 
that  things  somehow  belonged  together.  In  the  King 
James  Version  it  is  translated  indifferently  andy  huty 
or  so ;  and  sometimes  incorrectly  when.  Thus  we  get 
the  constant  succession  of  ands  which  are  so  familiar 
a  characteristic  of  the  Biblical  style.  In  consequence 
of  this  poverty  in  connectives  the  Hebrew  language 
could  not  express  swiftly  and  compactly  the  rela- 
tions of  facts  and  ideas  to  each  other;  and  it  was 
wholly  incapable  of  expressing  most  of  the  subtle 

^  E.  Renan:  Histoire  Generale  des  Langues  Semitiques,  1858. 
Chap.  I, 


THE  NARRATIVE  69 

modulations  which  give  variety  and  flexibility  to 
modern  writings.  It  was  a  language  in  which  solid 
fact  followed  solid  fact  in  hardly  changing  sequence. 
Indeed  in  the  Hebrew,  sentences  could  be  complete 
without  a  verb.  There  is  one  verse  in  our  transla- 
tion of  the  book  of  Proverbs  which  has  maintained 
the  form :  to  the  Hebrew  mind,  "  A  whip  for  the 
horse,  a  bridle  for  the  ass,  and  a  rod  for  the  fooPs 
back,"  ^  was  a  complete  sentence ;  the  mere  juxta- 
position of  the  ideas  sufficiently  expressed  its  sense 
of  the  relation  between  them.  Furthermore  the 
language  had  very  few  inflections.  The  verb  had 
only  two  tenses,  and  these  did  not  express  time;  the 
one  set  forth  the  act  as  still  going  on,  whether  in 
the  past,  the  present,  or  the  future,  and  the  other 
as  completed  at  some  time  in  the  past,  the  present, 
or  the  future.  'Nor  were  there  any  moods  to  ex- 
press absoluteness  or  dependence  of  the  action.  To 
quote  Renan  again :  "  Perspective  is  almost  entirely 
lacking  in  the  Semitic  style.  One  seeks  in  vain  for 
the  half  lights  which  give  to  the  Aryan  tongues,  as 
it  were,  the  double  power  of  expression.  One  must 
even  allow  that  the  idea  of  style  as  we  understand 
it  was  wholly  lacking  among  the  Semitic  people. 
Their  period  is  very  short;  the  extent  of  discourse 
which  they  embrace  at  a  time  never  passes  one  or 
*  Prov.  xxvi.  3, 


70  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

two  lines.  Wholly  preoccupied  with  the  present 
thought  they  do  not  construct  in  advance  the 
mechanism  of  the  phrase  and  take  no  thought  of 
what  has  gone  before  or  of  what  is  coming.  One 
would  say  that  their  style  was  like  the  freest  con- 
versation caught  in  its  flight  and  fixed  directly  by 
writing.'' 

We  shall  see  later  how  this  character  of  the  lan- 
guage blocked  the  way  to  anything  like  reasoning 
in  our  modern  sense.  Obviously  it  goes  a  long 
way  to  fix  the  character  of  the  narrative.  Stories 
in  which  the  writer  could  indicate  no  shades  of 
meaning,  and  none  of  the  subtler,  underlying  re- 
lations which  would  set  forth  his  individual  infer- 
ence and  judgments  about  the  facts,  would  seem 
irrationally  primitive  to  readers  of  Pater  and  Conrad 
and  Henry  James;  and  even  beside  such  old- 
fashioned  directness  as  that  of  Thackeray  or  Jane 
Austen  a  style  so  limited  would  seem  helpless.  But 
without  coming  down  to  our  own  times  we  can  find 
within  the  covers  of  the  Bible  a  contrast  which  will 
bring  out  this  essential  simplicity  of  what  we  look 
on  as  the  typical  Biblical  narrative.  Down  to  the 
end  of  the  third  gospel  there  is  no  narrative  in  the 
Bible  which  departs  from  the  types  we  have  been 
considering:  in  the  latter  part  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  the  style  becomes  radically  different.     Let 


THE   NARRATIVE  71 

me  quote  short  passages  first  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, then  from  Acts: 

And  Saul  armed  David  with  his  armour,  and  he 
put  an  helmet  of  brass  upon  his  head;  also  he 
armed  him  with  a  coat  of  mail. 

And  David  girded  his  sword  upon  his  armour, 
and  he  assayed  to  go;  for  he  had  not  proved  it. 
And  David  said  unto  Saul,  I  cannot  go  with  these; 
for  I  have  not  proved  them.  And  David  put  them 
off  him. 

And  he  took  his  staff  in  his  hand,  and  chose  him 
five  smooth  stones  out  of  the  brook,  and  put  them 
in  a  shepherd's  bag  which  he  had,  even  in  a  scrip; 
and  his  sling  was  in  his  hand :  and  he  drew  near  to 
the  Philistine. 

And  the  Philistine  came  on  and  drew  near  unto 
David;  and  the  man  that  bare  the  shield  went 
before  him. 

And  when  the  Philistine  looked  about,  and  saw 
David,  he  disdained  him:  for  he  was  but  a  youth, 
and  ruddy,  and  of  a  fair  countenance. 

And  the  Philistine  said  unto  David,  Am  I  a 
dog,  that  thou  comest  to  me  with  staves?  And 
the  Philistine  cursed  David  by  his  gods.^ 

In  this  passage,  in  which  there  are  both  narrative  and 
speeches,  there  are  no  connectives  but  and  between 
the  separate  clauses  and  sentences,  except  for  twice, 
and  no  clause  which  goes  beyond  two  lines  in  length. 

»  1  Sam.  xvii.  38-43. 


72  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

With  it  compare  this  passage  from  the  latter  part 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  where  the  influence  of 
the  Greek  shows  plainly  in  the  style: 

And  when  they  were  escaped,  then  they  knew 
that  the  island  was  called  Melita. 

And  the  barbarous  people  shewed  us  no  little 
kindness:  for  they  kindled  a  fire,  and  received  us 
every  one,  because  of  the  present  rain,  and  because 
of  the  cold. 

And  when  Paul  had  gathered  a  bundle  of 
sticks,  and  laid  them  on  the  fire,  there  came 
a  viper  out  of  the  heat,  and  fastened  on  his 
hand. 

And  when  the  barbarians  saw  the  venomous 
beast  hang  on  his  hand,  they  said  among  them- 
selves. No  doubt  this  man  is  a  murderer,  whom, 
though  he  hath  escaped  the  sea,  yet  vengeance 
suffereth  not  to  live. 

And  he  shook  off  the  beast  into  the  fire,  and 
felt  no  harm. 

Howbeit  they  looked  when  he  should  have 
swollen,  or  fallen  down  dead  suddenly;  but  after 
they  had  looked  a  great  while,  and  saw  no  harm 
come  to  him,  they  changed  their  minds,  and  said 
that  he  was  a  god.^ 

Here  there  are  hardly  two  sentences  alike:  the 
clauses  show  great  variety  in  length;  and  for  con- 
nectives we  find  when,  hut,  though,  howheit,  after; 

*  Acts  xxviii.  1-6. 


THE  NARRATIVE  73 

the  ands  are  comparatively  insignificant.  One  feels 
immediately  the  difference  between  the  two  styles. 
In  contrast  with  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  the  passage 
from  Samuel  sounds,  as  Kenan  has  suggested,  almost 
like  the  writing  of  a  child.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
contrast  to  the  vivid  and  unpremeditated  simplicity 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  passage  from  Acts  has  a 
touch  of  art:  one  feels  that  it  was  written  by  a  man 
who  knew  rhetoric,  who  had  some  acquaintance  with 
the  value  of  style  as  style,  and  who  was  intent  not 
merely  on  setting  forth  the  facts  but  who  also  took 
pleasure  in  the  finished  beauty  of  the  writing.  An- 
other even  more  accentuated  example  of  this  full- 
fledged  rhetorical  narrative  of  the  latter  chapters  of 
Acts  may  be  found  in  the  speeches  which  are  given 
to  St.  Paul.  Here  is  a  portion  of  his  answer  before 
Felix: 

Then  Paul,  after  that  the  governor  had  beckoned 
unto  him  to  speak,  answered.  Forasmuch  as  I  know 
that  thou  hast  been  of  many  years  a  judge  unto  this 
nation,  I  do  the  more  cheerfully  answer  for 
myself: 

Because  that  thou  mayest  understand,  that  there 
are  yet  but  twelve  days  since  I  went  up  to  Jeru- 
salem for  to  worship. 

And  they  neither  found  me  in  the  temple  dis- 
puting wdth  any  man,  neither  raising  up  the  people, 
neither  in  the  synagogues,  nor  in  the  city: 


74  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Neither  can  they  prove  the  things  whereof  they 
now  accuse  me. 

But  this  I  confess  unto  thee,  that  after  the  way 
which  they  call  heresy,  so  worship  I  the  God  of 
my  fathers,  believing  all  things  which  are  written 
in  the  law  and  in  the  prophets : 

And  have  hoped  toward  God,  which  they  them- 
selves also  allow,  that  there  shall  be  a  resurrection 
of  the  dead,  both  of  the  just  and  unjust. 

And  herein  do  I  exercise  myself,  to  have  always 
a  conscience  void  of  offence  toward  God,  and 
toward  men. 

Now  after  many  years  I  came  to  bring  alms  to 
my  nation,  and  offerings. 

Whereupon  certain  Jews  from  Asia  found  me 
purified  in  the  temple,  neither  with  multitude,  nor 
with  tumult. 

Who  ought  to  have  been  here  before  thee,  and 
object,  if  they  had  ought  against  me. 

Or  else  let  these  same  here  say,  if  they  have 
found  any  evil  doing  in  me,  while  I  stood  before  the 
council. 

Except  it  be  for  this  one  voice,  that  I  cried 
standing  among  them,  Touching  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead  I  am  called  in  question  by  you  this 
day.i 

In  this  little  speech  are  to  be  found  most  of  the  de- 
vices by  which  a  highly  developed  oratory  reaches 
its  effects.     Less  important  facts  are  so  subordinated 

1  Acts  xxiv.  10-21. 


THE   NARRATIVE  75 

as  to  modify  the  more  important  in  a  variety  of  ways, 
the  order  is  inverted  so  as  to  bring  striking  ideas  into 
relief,  and  the  thought  is  elaborately  bound  together 
by  connectives.  Clearly  this  was  written  by  a  writer 
who  belongs  to  the  same  world  as  Xenophon  and 
Herodotus,  as  Caesar  and  Cicero,  writers  whose  faces 
are  westward  and  towards  our  modern  world. 

Let  me  cite  one  more  example,  this  time  from 
modern  English,  to  bring  into  higher  relief  this  ob- 
jectivity and  simplicity  of  the  Bible  narrative.  One 
thinks  of  Bunyan's  Pilgrim^ s  Progress  as  an  example 
of  an  extremely  simple  style.  Here  is  a  short  pas- 
sage from  the  First  Part: 

I  looked  then  after  Christian  to  see  him  go  up 
the  hill,  where  I  perceived  he  fell  from  running  to 
going,  and  from  going  to  clambering  upon  his 
hands  and  his  knees,  because  of  the  steepness  of  the 
place.  Now  about  midway  to  the  top  of  the  hill 
was  a  pleasant  arbor,  made  by  the  Lord  of  the  hill 
for  the  refreshing  of  weary  travellers;  thither 
therefore  Christian  got,  where  also  he  sat  down 
to  rest  him.  Then  he  pulled  his  roll  out  of  his 
bosom,  and  read  therein  to  his  comfort;  he  also 
now  began  afresh  to  take  a  review  of  the  coat  or 
garment  that  was  given  him  as  he  stood  by  the 
cross.  Thus  pleasing  himself  awhile,  he  at  last  fell 
into  a  slumber,  and  thence  into  a  fast  sleep,  which 
detained  him  in  that  place  until  it  was  almost  night; 


76  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

and  in  his  sleep  the  roll  fell  out  of  his  hand.  Now 
as  he  was  sleeping,  there  came  one  to  him,  and 
awaked  him,  saying,  Go  to  the  Ant,  thou  sluggard; 
consider  her  ways,  and  he  wise.  And  with  that  Chris- 
tian suddenly  started  up,  and  sped  him  on  his  way, 
and  went  apace  till  he  came  to  the  top  of  the  hill. 

In  this  passage  the  clauses  run  to  three  and  four  and 
even  five  lines;  and  instead  of  all  the  clauses  being 
co-ordinate  and  of  equal  value,  every  sentence  shows 
subordination  of  one  idea  to  another  by  where,  by 
relatives,  by  participles  and  other  devices  of  a  mod- 
ern language.  Such  writing  as  this  is  of  another 
kind  than  that  of  the  Bible  narrative.  The  sim- 
plicity of  Pilgrim^s  Progress  expresses  far  more 
ratiocination  and  consciousness  of  the  finer  relations 
between  ideas  than  does  even  the  most  advanced 
style  in  the  Biblical  narrative.  Like  the  speeches 
ascribed  to  St.  Paul  in  Acts  Bunyan's  writing  be- 
longs to  a  mode  of  thought  and  of  style  which  are 
unknown  in  the  Old  Testament. 


lY 

In  the  New  Testament,  the  most  common  type 
of  narrative  stands  between  the  unbroken  co-ordina- 
tion and  simplicity  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
fully  developed  Greek  style  of  the  latter  chapters  of 


THE  NARRATIVE  77 

Acts.  It  is  almost  certain  that  the  first  three  Gospels 
consist  of  material  which  was  originally  composed 
in  Aramaic,  the  Semitic  dialect  which  gradually  took 
the  place  of  Hebrew  in  Palestine  after  the  exile. 
The  general  character  of  this  Aramaic  language, 
being  the  same  as  that  of  Hebrew,  tended  to  fix 
on  the  narrative  portions  of  these  gospels  the  same 
general  style  that  we  find  in  the  Old  Testament :  and 
though  the  influence  of  the  Greek  in  which  they  were 
finally  written  shows  in  the  frequency  of  participles 
and  when  clauses,  yet  there  are  almost  no  sustained 
periods.  In  consequence  these  gospels  and  the  early 
part  of  Acts  seem  almost  as  foreign  beside  the  later 
part  of  Acts  as  does  the  Old  Testament  itself.  Be- 
side the  Gospels,  on  the  other  hand.  Judges  and 
Samuel  and  Kings  seem  to  belong  to  a  world  of  the 
past:  and  this  effect  may  in  part  be  ascribed  to  the 
fact  that  their  style  is  actually  archaic  in  a  way  that 
the  style  of  the  gospels  is  not.  In  the  last-named 
w^e  have  simplicity,  but  it  is  not  a  primitive  sim- 
plicity. 

A  good  example  of  the  average  style  of  the  ^ew 
Testament  narrative  may  be  taken  from  the  account 
of  the  death  of  John  the  Baptist  in  the  Gospel  Ac- 
cording to  St.  Mark.  This  gospel  is  the  simplest 
of  the  four,  and  at  the  same  time  is  especially  full 
of  little  touches  of  vivifying  and  convincing  detail. 


78  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

For  Herod  himself  had  sent  forth  and  laid  hold 
upon  John,  and  bound  him  in  prison  for  Herodias' 
sake,  his  brother  Philip's  wife:  for  he  had  married 
her. 

For  John  had  said  unto  Herod,  It  is  not  lawful 
for  thee  to  have  thy  brother's  wife. 

Therefore  Herodias  had  a  quarrel  against  him, 
and  would  have  killed  him ;  but  she  could  not : 

For  Herod  feared  John,  knowing  that  he  was  a 
just  man  and  an  holy,  and  observed  him;  and  when 
he  heard  him,  he  did  many  things,  and  heard  him 
gladly. 

And  when  a  convenient  day  was  come,  that 
Herod  on  his  birthday  made  a  supper  to  his  lords, 
high  captains,  and  chief  estates  of  Galilee; 

And  when  the  daughter  of  the  said  Herodias 
came  in,  and  danced,  and  pleased  Herod  and  them 
that  sat  with  him,  the  king  said  unto  the  damsel, 
Ask  of  me  whatsoever  thou  wilt,  and  I  will  give  it 
thee. 

And  he  sware  unto  her.  Whatsoever  thou  shalt 
ask  of  me,  I  will  give  it  thee  unto  the  half  of  my 
kingdom. 

And  she  went  forth,  and  said  unto  her  mother. 
What  shall  I  ask?  And  she  said,  The  head  of  John 
the  Baptist. 

And  she  came  in  straightway  with  haste  unto  the 
king,  and  asked,  saying,  I  will  that  thou  give  me 
by  and  by  in  a  charger  the  head  of  John  the 
Baptist. 

And  the  king  was  exceeding  sorry;  yet  for  his 


THE  NARRATIVE  79 

oath's  sake,  and  for  their  sakes  which  sat  with 
him,  he  would  not  reject  her. 

And  immediately  the  king  sent  an  executioner, 
and  commanded  his  head  to  be  brought:  and  he 
went  and  beheaded  him  in  the  prison. 

And  brought  his  head  in  a  charger,  and  gave  it 
to  the  damsel :  and  the  damsel  gave  it  to  her  mother. 

And  when  his  disciples  heard  of  it,  they  came 
and  took  up  his  corpse,  and  laid  it  in  a  tomb.^ 

Here  the  subordination  of  subsidiary  to  principal 
facts  helps  to  add  swiftness  to  the  narrative;  and  at 
the  same  time  the  absence  of  all  subtleties  keeps  the 
story  real  and  solid.  In  such  passages  the  art  of 
story-telling,  without  losing  any  of  its  substantial 
power,  is  brought  to  a  still  higher  degree  of  per- 
fection than  in  the  Old  Testament.  This  variety 
and  modulation  of  the  style  makes  possible  the 
ethereal  power  of  the  description  in  St.  Luke  of  the 
shepherds  watching  in  the  field  by  night,  perhaps 
the  most  beautiful  short  piece  of  narrative  in  the 
whole  Bible: 

And  there  were  in  the  same  country  shepherds 
abiding  in  the  field,  keeping  watch  over  their  flock 
by  night. 

And,  lo,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  upon  them, 
and  the'glory  of  the  Lord  shone  round  about  them : 
and  they  were  sore  afraid. 

» Mark  vi.  17-29 


80  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

And  the  angel  said  unto  them,  Fear  not:  for, 
behold,  I  bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy, 
which  shall  be  to  all  people. 

For  unto  you  is  born  this  day  in  the  city  of 
David  a  Saviour,  which  is  Christ  the  Lord. 

And  this  shall  be  a  sign  unto  you;  Ye  shall  find 
the  babe  wapped  in  swaddling  clothes,  lying  in  a 
manger. 

And  suddenly  there  was  with  the  angel  a  multi- 
tude of  the  heavenly  host  praising  God,  and 
saying, 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace, 
good  will  toward  men. 

And  it  came  to  pass,  as  the  angels  were  gone 
away  from  them  into  heaven,  the  shepherds  said 
one  to  another,  Let  us  now  go  even  unto  Beth- 
lehem, and  see  this  thing  which  is  come  to  pass, 
which  the  Lord  hath  made  known  unto  us. 

And  they  came  with  haste,  and  found  Mary, 
and  Joseph,  and  the  babe  lying  in  a  manger. 

And  when  they  had  seen  it,  they  made  known 
abroad  the  saying  which  was  told  them  concerning 
this  child. 

And  all  they  that  heard  it  wondered  at  those 
things  which  were  told  them  by  the  shepherds. 

But  Mary  kept  all  these  things,  and  pondered 
them  in  her  heart. 

And  the  shepherds  returned,  glorifying  and 
praising  God  for  all  the  things  that  they  had  heard 
and  seen,  as  it  was  told  unto  them.^ 

^  Luke  ii.  8-20. 


THE   NARRATIVE  81 

Here  St.  Luke's  trained  sense  for  style  reaches  its 
highest  point;  in  recording  the  tradition  which  had 
come  to  him,  he  keeps  its  absolute  simplicity;  and 
at  the  same  time  his  knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing 
makes  it  possible  for  him  to  touch  it  with  a  sheer 
beauty  of  style  which  expresses  feelings  hardly 
known  to  the  Old  Testament.  Thus  without  any 
suggestion  of  the  somewhat  palpable  art  which  we 
feel  in  the  latter  part  of  Acts,  the  gospels  seem  the 
work  of  writers  w^ho  lived  in  our  half  of  the  world 
and  on  the  hither  side  of  antiquity. 


Yet  when  one  turns  from  the  style  to  the  sub- 
stance one  feels  again  that  all  these  narratives  be- 
long to  another  world.  For  these  ancient  writers, 
whether  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the  Xew,  there 
were  no  subtleties:  they  took  note  only  of  the  solid 
facts  of  life ;  they  had  no  interest  in  inferences 
and  modifications  and  other  complications  of  thought 
which  might  be  built  upon  them.  I  can  bring  out 
this  difference  more  concretely  by  an  example  from 
Browning's  Saul.  Here  the  compact  narrative  of 
Samuel  is  expanded  to  a  poem  of  seven  pages  of  close 
print.    Let  me  quote  first  a  few  verses  of  the  original : 


82  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

But  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  departed  from  Saul, 
and  an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord  troubled  him. 

And  Saul's  servants  said  unto  him,  Behold  now, 
an  evil  spirit  from  God  troubleth  thee. 

Let  our  lord  now  command  thy  servants,  which 
are  before  thee,  to  seek  out  a  man,  who  is  a  cunning 
player  on  an  harp:  and  it  shall  come  to  pass,  when 
the  evil  spirit  from  God  is  upon  thee,  that  he  shall 
play  with  his  hand,  and  thou  shalt  be  well. 

And  Saul  said  unto  his  servants.  Provide  me 
now  a  man  that  can  play  well,  and  bring  him  to  me. 

And  David  came  to  Saul,  and  stood  before  him: 
and  he  loved  him  greatly;  and  he  became  his 
armour  bearer. 

And  Saul  sent  to  Jesse,  saying.  Let  David,  I 
pray  thee,  stand  before  me;  for  he  hath  found 
favour  in  my  sight. 

And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  evil  spirit  from 
God  was  upon  Saul,  that  David  took  an  harp, 
and  played  with  his  hand:  so  Saul  was  refreshed, 
and  was  well,  and  the  evil  spirit  departed  from 
him.^ 

This  is  almost  the  whole  of  the  passage  on  which 
Browning  builds.  Compare  a  small  part  of  Brown- 
ing's development  of  part  of  the  last  verse ;  the  mere 
expansion,  however,  is  the  least  of  the  differences 
between  the  two  stories. 

'  1  Sam.  xvi.  14-17:  21-23. 


THE   NARRATIVE  83 

Then  I,  as  was  meet, 
Knelt  down  to  the  God  of  my  fathers,  and  rose 

on  my  feet, 
And  ran  o'er  the  sand  burnt  to  powder.     The 

tent  was  unlooped; 
I  pulled  up  the  spear  that  obstructed,  and  under 

I  stooped; 
Hands  and  knees  on  the  slippery  grass-patch, 

all  withered  and  gone, 
That  extends  to  the  second  enclosure,  I  groped 

my  way  on 
Till  I  felt  where  the  foldskirts  fly  open.     Then 

once  more  I  prayed, 
And  opened  the  foldskirts  and  entered,  and  was 

not  afraid, 
But  spoke.  Here  is  David,  thy  servant!     And 

no  voice  replied. 
At  first  I  saw  naught  but  the  blackness:  but 

soon  I  descried 
A  something  more  black  than  the  blackness — 

the  vast,  the  upright 
Main   prop   which   sustains   the   pavilion:   and 

slow  into  sight 
Grew  a  figure  against  it,  gigantic  and  blackest 

of  all. 
Then  a  sunbeam,  that  burst  thro'  the  tent-roof, 

showed  Saul. 


Then  I  tuned  my  harp, — took  off  the  lilies  we 
twine  round  its  chords 


84  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Lest  they  snap  'neath  the  stress  of  the  noontide 

— those  sunbeams  Hke  swords! 
And  I  first  played  the  tune  all  our  sheep  know, 

as  one  after  one, 
So  docile  they  came  to  the  pen-door  till  folding 

be  done. 
They  are  white  and  untorn  by  the  bushes,  for 

lo,  they  have  fed 
Where  the  long  grasses  stifle  the  water  within 

the  stream's  bed; 
And  now  one  after  one  seeks  its  lodging  as  star 

follows  star 
Into  eve  and  the  blue  far  above  us, — so  blue 

and  so  far. 

Browning  chose,  we  may  assume,  wholly  to  neglect 
the  spirit  of  the  Biblical  narrative.  Leaving  out  of 
account  the  ambling  measure,  itself  so  incongruous 
beside  the  stately  march  of  the  Bible  story,  one  sees 
that  in  place  of  the  grave  restraint,  and  the  absorp- 
tion in  the  solid  realities  of  life,  he  lets  his  thought 
spin  itself  out  into  a  network  of  subtleties;  and  the 
imaginations  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  David 
are  those  of  the  modern  day,  not  of  the  East,  and 
of  the  ancient  past. 

Oh,  our    manhood's    prime    vigor!     No 
spirit  feels  waste 
Not  a  muscle  is  stopped  in  its  playing,  nor  sinew 
unbraced. 


THE  NARRATIVE  85 

Oh,  the  wild  joys  of  living!  the  leaping  from 

rock  up  to  rock, 
The  strong  rending  of  boughs  from  the  fir-tree, 

the  cool  silver  shock 
Of  the  plunge  in  a  pool's  living  water,  the  hunt 

of  the  bear 
And  the  sultriness  showing  the  lion  is  crouched 

in  his  lair. 
And  the  meal,  the  rich  dates  yellowed  over  with 

with  gold  dust  divine, 
And  the  locust-flesh   steeped    in    the    pitcher, 

the  full  draught  of  wine. 
And  the  sleep  in  the  dried  river-channel  where 

bulrushes  tell 
That  the  water  is  wont  to  go  warbling  so  softly 

and  well. 
How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living!  how 

fit  to  employ 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  forever 

in  joy! 

This  David  of  Browning's  imagination  could  not 
have  lived  before  the  Italian  renaissance.  The  pleas- 
ures of  these  men  of  the  East  from  whom  the  Old 
Testament  sprang  were  grave;  and  though  they  en- 
joyed their  sensations,  they  did  not  know  that  they 
had  them.  There  is  a  phrase  in  one  of  Mr.  Kip- 
ling's stories  which  describes  the  difference.  In 
Her  Majesty's  Servants,  the  animals  get  to  talk- 
ing about  the  things  each  is  afraid  of,  and  the  bul- 


86  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

locks  cannot  understand  why  at  the  flight  of  the 
bullets  the  elephant  stampedes,  while  they  graze  in 
peace.  Then  the  elephant  explains  to  them  the  dif- 
ference :  "  You  can  only  see  out  of  your  heads,  I 
can  see  into  mine."  That  phrase  sums  up  the  dif- 
ference between  the  Oriental  and  ancient  world  from 
which  come  these  stories  of  the  Bible,  and  the 
modern  world  from  which  springs  Browning's  poem. 
The  thought  of  the  East  was  essentially  simple.  It 
knew  only  the  objective  and  solid  facts  of  which  man 
has  direct  sensation,  and  the  simple  and  primitive 
emotions  which  are  his  reaction  to  them.  It  has 
no  perception  of  the  subtler  shades  and  shadows  of 
feeling  in  which  modern  writers  delight,  nor  of  the 
complicated  webs  of  thought  which  grow  from  men's 
efforts  to  reason  out  the  universe.  Nothing  will 
more  accentuate  the  chasm  which  stands  between  us 
and  that  ancient  world  than  an  attempt  to  imagine 
Browning's  Saul  written  in  the  style  of  these 
Biblical  narratives.  The  writers  of  the  book  of 
Samuel  could  not  have  conceived  the  subtleties  and 
arabesques  of  this  poem;  and  if  they  had  been  able 
to  do  so,  their  language  would  have  provided  no 
means  of  expressing  them. 

Yet  to  this  very  limitation  we  must  ascribe  much 
of  the  permanent  expressive  power  of  the  Bible  nar- 
ratives.    They  are  an  unbroken  stream  of  objective 


THE  NARRATIVE  87 

realities.  Their  whole  texture  is  composed  of  the 
things  which  men  can  feel  and  see  and  hear.  The 
very  lack  of  the  means  for  subordinating  ideas  took 
away  from  the  writers  the  power  of  coloring  the 
facts  with  their  own  personality.  In  Browning's 
poem  the  simple  realities  of  the  original  story  of 
David  are  overlaid  and  obscured  by  his  own  imag- 
inings. These  imaginations,  though  in  themselves 
interesting  to  many  people,  are  individual  and  per- 
sonal and  therefore  of  limited  appeal,  where  the  Old 
Testament  story  is  impersonal  and  universal  and 
therefore  permanent.  Our  more  elaborate  art  may 
build  more  complicated  structures,  and  carry  its 
chiselling  of  detail  to  a  higher  degree  of  subtlety; 
but  in  so  far  as  it  loses  its  hold  on  the  qualities 
which  belong  to  the  Biblical  narrative  it  loses  power. 
For,  after  all,  swiftness  of  movement,  sparing  but 
vivifjdng  use  of  background,  unflagging  earnestness 
of  purpose,  and  depth  of  feeling  are  the  qualities 
which  give  to  narrative  the  surest  hold  on  the  human 
imagination. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    POETRY 


In"  the  preceding  chapter  on  the  narratives  of  the 
Bible,  we  have  found  that  their  most  essential  and 
distinctive  characteristic  is  the  transfiguring  of  a 
limpid  and  simple  vividness  by  deep  earnestness  and 
elevation  of  feeling ;  so  that  stories  of  the  rough  and 
homely  life  of  the  early  days  of  Israel  are  made 
worthy  to  stand  by  the  narratives  of  the  gospel.  In 
this  chapter  I  am  to  discuss  the  poetry  of  the  Bible ; 
and  here  again  we  shall  find  the  same  combination 
of  a  primitive  simplicity  and  concreteness  of  expres- 
sion with  the  profound  and  ennobling  emotion  that 
transfigures  the  experience  of  man  into  an  expression 
of  permanent  verities.  The  distinguishing  charac- 
teristic of  the  poetry  of  the  Bible  is  its  absolute  ob- 
jectivity: it  knew  only  facts  which  are  concrete  and 
which  mean  always  the  same  to  all  men.  This  com- 
plete objectivity  and  concreteness  joined  to  the  strong 
rhythm  and  the  rich  coloring  of  the  style  give  pal- 

88 


THE   POETRY  89 

pable  form  to  feelings  which  are  too  large  and  too 
deep-seated  to  be  explained  by  articulate  language. 

Let  us  begin  with  a  brief  survey  of  the  poetry 
in  something  like  chronological  order.  Here,  even 
more  than  with  the  rest  of  the  literature,  we  must 
remember  that  we  have  only  a  portion  of  all  the 
poetry  of  Israel,  and  that  perhaps  a  small  portion. 
Whole  classes  of  it  must  have  disappeared.  The 
literature  w^as  collected  during  and  after  the  Exile 
by  men  who  were  passionately  and  wholly  devoted 
to  preserving  the  religion  of  Jehovah  from  the  at- 
tacks of  the  heathen  and  to  making  it  a  living  force 
for  righteousness  among  the  remnant  of  their  own 
nation.  They  were  thinking  of  higher  matters  than 
beauty  of  expression:  they  were  concerned  with  the 
revelations  of  God  to  man,  not  with  the  imagina- 
tions of  men's  hearts.  For  them  no  writing  was 
of  value  which  did  not  bear  on  the  history  of  God's 
chosen  people  and  on  the  revelation  to  them  of  his 
will.  The  Pentateuch,  as  containing  the  Law,  set 
the  standard  of  admission  to  the  Old  Testament:  to 
that  were  added  first  the  other  books  of  history  and 
the  books  of  the  prophets,  as  supplementing  and  il- 
lustrating the  Law,  then  these  books  of  poetry  and 
the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament  as  in  one  way  or  an- 
other sacred  through  their  relations  to  the  religion 
of  Israel  as  set  forth  in  the  Law.     That  there  must 


90  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

have  been  other  poetry  than  that  which  we  have 
admits  of  no  doubt:  there  must  have  been  other 
songs  of  victory  than  those  of  Deborah,  other  dirges 
than  those  of  David  on  Saul  and  Jonathan  and  on 
Abner,  other  poems  of  manners  than  those  in  Prov- 
erbs on  the  drunkard  and  the  sluggard,  other  love 
and  wedding  songs  than  those  in  the  Song  of  Solo- 
mon. What  we  have  left  merely  shows  how  large 
and  rich  was  the  art  of  poetry  among  the  people  of 
Israel  from  the  earliest  times.  Moreover,  the 
dominance  of  the  psalms  and  the  wisdom  poems  in 
our  Old  Testament  can  hardly  represent  the  original 
range  of  the  old  Hebrew  poetry.  During  the 
troubled  times  of  the  Exile  and  the  succeeding  cen- 
turies, when  the  Jews  were  tossed  from  one  con- 
querer  to  another,  and  harried  and  spoiled  in  the 
unceasing  wars  for  the  control  of  Palestine,  all  but 
their  most  essential  writings  must  have  disappeared. 
In  the  desperate  struggle  to  keep  themselves  and  the 
religion  of  Jehovah  from  being  crushed  and  an- 
nihilated by  the  heathen  they  had  no  time  to  think 
of  songs  of  love  and  feasting  and  the  making  and 
copying  of  poetry  which  served  no  more  substantial 
purpose  than  beauty.  We  must  remember,  then,  that 
in  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  we  have  only 
a  portion  of  Hebrew  literature,  and  that  rigidly 
selected  for  a  direct  and  practical  religious  purpose. 


THE   POETRY  91 

ISTow  when  we  look  at  these  remnants  of  the 
poetry,  and  especially  when  we  arrange  it  in  what  is 
probably  chronological  order,  we  find  great  changes  in 
form  from  the  early  poetry  to  the  later.  The  early 
poetry  we  may  take  in  a  large  sense  as  that  which 
comes  from  before  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  when  the 
revelations  of  the  great  prophets  Amos,  Hosea,  and 
Isaiah  made  the  turning  point  both  in  the  history 
and  in  the  literature  of  Israel.  Of  this  early  poetry 
we  have  few  examples.  The  Song  of  Deborah  in 
Judges  is  held  to  be  the  earliest  of  all :  it  is  undoubt- 
edly the  song  of  triumph  which  was  composed  and 
uttered  by  Deborah  herself  to  celebrate  the  great 
victory  won  by  her  people.  A  couple  of  centuries 
later  than  this  perhaps  would  be  the  dirge  which 
David  sang  at  the  death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  the 
"  Song  of  the  Bow,''  as  it  is  called  in  our  version, 
in  2  Samuel  i.  Probably  from  about  the  same  period 
comes  the  Blessing  of  Jacob  in  Genesis  xlix;  and 
from  a  somewhat  later  time  the  Blessing  of  Moses  in 
Deuteronomy  xxxiii,  the  oracles  of  Balaam  in  Num- 
bers xxiii-xxiv,  and  a  few  smaller  fragments.  These 
poems,  except  the  Song  of  Deborah  and  David's 
lamentation,  in  the  course  of  transmission  became 
separated  from  the  occasions  which  gave  them  birth ; 
and  the  composers  of  our  books  inserted  them  in 
places  which  seemed  to  them  appropriate.     All  these 


92  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

poems  we  may  accept  as  having  been  written  before 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  b.c. 

Eeading  these  early  poems  together  one  finds  that 
they  have  in  common  a  stirring  rush  and  vigor  of 
expression  and  an  abrupt  and  swiftly  changing  dic- 
tion.    Here  is  a  portion  of  the  Song  of  Deborah: 

The  kings  came  and  fought;  then  fought  the 
kings  of  Canaan  in  Taanach  by  the  waters  of 
Megiddo;  they  took  no  gain  of  money. 

They  fought  from  heaven;  the  stars  in  their 
courses  fought  against  Sisera. 

The  river  of  Kishon  swept  them  away,  that 
ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon.  O  my  soul,  thou 
hast  trodden  down  strength. 

Then  were  the  horsehoofs  broken  by  the  means 
of  the  pransings,  the  pransings  of  their  mighty  ones. 

Curse  ye  Meroz,  said  the  angel  of  the  Lord;  curse 
ye  bitterly  the  inhabitants  thereof;  because  they 
came  not  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty.^ 

Here  every  verse  has  a  new  figure;  and  one  feels 
the  freshness  and  opulence  of  resource  of  the  singer. 
For  comparison  let  me  cite  the  last  psalm  of  the 
Psalter : 

Praise  ye  the  Lord.  Praise  God  in  his  sanctuary : 
praise  him  in  the  firmament  of  his  power. 

Praise   him   for   his   mighty   acts:   praise   him 
according  to  his  excellent  greatness. 
^  Judges  V.  19-23. 


THE  POETRY  93 

Praise  him  with  the  sound  of  the  trumpet: 
praise  him  with  the  psaltery  and  harp. 

Praise  him  with  the  timbrel  and  dance:  praise 
him  with  stringed  instruments  and  organs. 

Praise  him  upon  the  loud  cymbals:  praise  him 
upon  the  high  sounding  cymbals. 

Let  everything  that  hath  breath  praise  the  Lord. 
Praise  ye  the  Lord.^ 

The  contrast  is  exaggerated,  for  in  these  liturgical 
psalms,  as  in  many  of  our  modern  hymns,  the  words 
are  of  importance  chiefly  as  affording  a  continuous 
medium  for  music;  but  the  poverty  and  convention- 
ality of  the  thought  and  the  formal  regularity  of 
the  verse  throw  into  relief  the  spontaneity  and 
variety  of  the  earlier  poem.  The  change  is  from 
a  poetry  in  which  the  words  and  imagery  spring 
freshly  from  the  immediate  occasion  to  a  poetry 
which  is  the  handmaid  of  music. 

Let  me  cite  another  pair  of  examples  in  which 
the  contrast  is  less  extreme,  a  few  verses  from  one 
of  the  oracles  of  Balaam  and  about  as  many  from 
Psalm  xxxiv.  Here  is  the  third  oracle  which  Balaam 
uttered  at  the  behest  of  Balak : 

And  he  took  up  his  parable,  and  said,  Balaam 
the  son  of  Beor  hath  said,  and  the  man  whose  eyes 
are  open  hath  said: 

He  hath  said,  which  heard  the  words  of  God, 
1  Ps.  cl. 


94  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

which  saw  the  vision  of  the  Almighty,  falHng  into 
a  trance,  but  having  his  eyes  open: 

How  goodly  are  thy  tents,  O  Jacob,  and  thy 
tabernacles,  O  Israel! 

As  the  valleys  are  they  spread  forth,  as  gardens 
by  the  river's  side,  as  the  trees  of  lign  aloes  which 
the  Lord  hath  planted,  and  as  cedar  trees  beside 
the  waters. 

He  shall  pour  the  water  out  of  his  buckets,  and 
his  seed  shall  be  in  many  waters,  and  his  king  shall 
be  higher  than  Agag,  and  his  kingdom  shall  be 
exalted. 

God  brought  him  forth  out  of  Egypt;  he  hath 
as  it  were  the  strength  of  an  unicorn:  he  shall  eat 
up  the  nations  his  enemies,  and  shall  break  their 
bones,  and  pierce  them  through  with  his  arrows. 

He  couched,  he  lay  down  as  a  lion,  and  as  a  great 
lion:  who  shall  stir  him  up?  Blessed  is  he  that 
blesseth  thee,  and  cursed  is  he  that  curseth  thee.^ 

With  this  consider  the  familiar  passage  from  Psalm 
xxxiv : 

This  poor  man  cried,  and  the  Lord  heard  him, 
and  saved  him  out  of  all  his  troubles. 

The  angel  of  the  Lord  encampeth  round  about 
them  that  fear  him,  and  delivereth  them. 

O  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is  good :  blessed  is 
the  man  that  trusteth  in  him. 

O  fear  the  Lord,  ye  his  saints:  for  there  i^  no 
want  to  them  that  fear  him. 

Num.  xxiv,  3-9. 


THE  POETRY  95 

The  young  lions  do  lack  and  suffer  hunger:  but 
they  that  seek  the  Lord  shall  not  want  any  good 
thing.  1 

Between  these  two  passages  there  are  the  same  dif- 
ferences as  between  the  other  two,  though  in  less 
exaggerated  form.  The  oracle  of  Balaam  is  prob- 
ably an  early  poem  inserted  here  by  some  editor  who 
saw  its  appropriateness  to  the  place.  The  profusion 
and  the  constant  change  of  figure  are  the  instinctive 
and  spontaneous  response  to  the  vivid  intensity  of 
the  feeling:  one  feels  that  the  imagery  is  struck  out 
fresh  from  the  mint  of  the  imagination  for  the 
special  occasion.  In  the  psalm,  on  the  other  hand, 
for  all  the  beauty  and  the  expressiveness  of  its 
phrasing,  one  feels  a  background  of  familiar  litera- 
ture: it  is  as  if  this  poet  found  his  imagery  in  the 
great  storehouse  of  earnest  and  pious  expression 
which  had  come  down  to  him  as  a  heritage  from 
earlier  generations,  and  as  if  this  literature  were  a 
more  living  fact  to  him  than  the  life  behind  it  from 
which  its  imagery  was  drawn.  I  can  put  the  dis- 
tinction more  concretely  and  not  too  whimsically 
perhaps  by  suggesting  that  the  lions  who  "  lack  and 
suffer  hunger ''  in  the  psalm  were  probably  known 
to  this  later  poet  chiefly  through  literature:  but  that 
the  earlier  poet  in  his  figure,  "  He  couched,  he  lay 
>  Ps.  xxxiv.  6-10. 


96  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

down  as  a  lion,  and  as  a  great  lion/'  may  have  been 
writing  of  a  danger  which  he  had  himself  known. 
Certainly  the  difference  in  vividness  seems  to  carry 
us  nearer  the  realities  of  life:  in  the  psalm  the  lion 
seems  not  much  more  than  a  fine  figure  of  speech. 
Very  few  early  poems  have  survived  in  their  original 
form ;  but  these  examples  will  serve  to  bring  out  the 
difference  between  the  spontaneity  and  freshness  of 
the  early  poetry  and  the  finished  and  deliberate  art 
of  the  later.  The  early  poetry  gives  the  impression 
of  being  born  in  the  very  heat  of  joy  or  grief  or 
triumph:  the  later  poems  seem  in  comparison  the 
work  of  an  art  which  has  been  brought  by  long 
growth  and  study  to  a  high  degree  of  finish. 

The  Psalms,  however,  we  must  remember,  were 
poems  which  were  used  as  hymns  in  the  musical  ser- 
vices of  the  temple ;  and  we  may  suppose  that  their 
adaptation  to  this  purpose  to  some  extent  smoothed 
their  freedom  of  structure  to  a  somewhat  more  formal 
regularity.  It  is  dangerous  to  put  too  much  argu- 
ment on  a  single  example,  especially  when  we  know 
so  little  about  the  principles  that  governed  Hebrew 
poetry:  but  the  poem  which  stands  as  the  third 
chapter  of  Hahakhuk,  which  by  its  superscription 
"  upon  Shigionoth  "  seems  to  have  been  written  for 
music,  is  somewhat  less  fixed  and  regular  in  its  form 
than  the  psalms.     Here  is  a  part  of  it: 


THE  POETRY  97 

God  came  from  Teman,  and  the  Holy  One 
from  mount  Paran.  Selah.  His  glory  covered 
the  heavens,  and  the  earth  was  full  of  his 
praise. 

And  his  brightness  was  as  the  light;  he  had 
horns  coming  out  of  his  hand:  and  there  was  the 
hiding  of  his  power. 

Before  him  went  the  pestilence,  and  burning 
coals  went  forth  at  his  feet. 

He  stood,  and  measured  the  earth:  he  beheld, 
and  drove  asunder  the  nations;  and  the  everlasting 
mountains  were  scattered,  the  perpetual  hills  did 
bow:  his  ways  are  everlasting. 

I  saw  the  tent  of  Cushan  in  affliction:  and  the 
curtains  of  the  land  of  Midian  did  tremble. 

Was  the  Lord  displeased  against  the  rivers? 
was  thine  anger  against  the  rivers?  was  thy  wrath 
against  the  sea,  that  thou  didst  ride  upon  thine 
horses  and  thy  chariots  of  salvation? 

Thy  bow  was  made  quite  naked,  according  to 
the  oaths  of  the  tribes,  even  thy  word.  Selah. 
Thou  didst  cleave  the  earth  with  rivers. 

The  mountains  saw  thee,  and  they  trembled: 
the  overflo^ving  of  the  water  passed  by:  the  deep 
uttered  his  voice,  and  lifted  up  his  hands  on 
high. 

The  sun  and  moon  stood  still  in  their  habitation: 
at  the  light  of  thine  arrows  they  went,  and  at  the 
shining  of  thy  glittering  spear. 

Thou  didst  march  through  the  land  in  indig- 
nation, thou  didst  thresh  the  heathen  in  anger.^ 
'  Hab.  iii.  3-12. 


98  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

As  compared  with  the  regular  stanzas  of  Psalm  xviii 
this  poem  seems  what  the  musicians  would  call  a 
free  composition.     Here  is  one  stanza  of  the  psalm: 

Then  the  earth  shook  and  trembled ;  the  founda- 
tions also  of  the  hills  moved  and  were  shaken, 
because  he  was  wroth. 

There  went  up  a  smoke  out  of  his  nostrils,  and 
fire  out  of  his  mouth  devoured :  coals  were  kindled 
by  it. 

He  bowed  the  heavens  also,  and  came  down: 
and  darkness  was  under  his  feet. 

And  he  rode  upon  a  cherub,  and  did  fly :  yea,  he 
did  fly  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind. 

He  made  darkness  his  secret  place;  his  pavilion 
round  about  him  were  dark  waters  and  thick 
clouds  of  the  skies. 

At  the  brightness  that  was  before  him  his  thick 
clouds  passed,  hail  stones  and  coals  of  fire. 

The  Lord  also  thundered  in  the  heavens,  and  the 
Highest  gave  his  voice;  hail  stones  and  coals  of 
fire.i 

Beside  the  poem  the  psalm  seems  evenly,  and  as  it 
were  deliberately,  wrought  out,  with  due  and  artistic 
regard  for  the  regular  forms  of  a  recognized  poetic 
literature :  it  seems  to  owe  more  to  the  polishing  and 
the  orderly  arrangement  which  are  the  heritage  of 
poets  who  come  late  in  the  history  of  their  art.  The 
change,  however,  is  merely  from  one  form  of  beauty 
» Ps.  xviii.  7-13. 


THE  POETRY  99 

to  another.  The  early  poems  have  a  certain  freedom 
and  wildness  which  carry  back  one's  imagination  to 
the  youth  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel;  the  later  poems 
are  the  product  of  a  developed  civilization:  both  are 
the  outpouring  of  earnest  and  deep  feeling. 

How  highly  developed  in  form  this  poetry  of  the 
Old  Testament  came  to  be  in  the  later  days  may  be 
seen  from  the  number  of  alphabetic  or  acrostic 
poems  which  we  have  left.  In  the  four  chapters  of 
Lamentations  and  in  certain  of  the  psalms  the  verses 
or  groups  of  verses  in  the  Hebrew  begin  with  the  suc- 
cessive letters  of  the  alphabet.  Of  these  alphabetic 
poems  Psalm  cxix  is  the  most  familiar  example,  for 
in  the  Authorised  Version  the  names  of  the  Hebrew 
letters  are  set  at  the  head  of  each  of  the  sections. 
This  psalm  as  one  reads  it  section  by  section  seems  a 
somewhat  deliberate  exercise ;  and  noting  its  artificial 
form  one  is  inclined  to  let  it  go  with  a  passing 
comparison  to  the  poems  in  the  form  of  altars  or 
wings  which  make  George  Herbert's  Temple  seem 
so  far  from  our  simpler  taste  of  to-day.  But  let  me 
cite  a  few  verses  from  the  first  chapter  of  Lamen- 
tations: 

Is  it  nothing  to  you,  all  ye  that  pass  by?  behold, 
and  see  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my  sorrow, 
which  is  done  unto  me,  wherewith  the  Lord  hath 
affhcted  me  in  the  day  of  his  fierce  anger. 


100  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

From  above  hath  he  sent  fire  into  my  bones,  and 
it  prevaileth  against  them:  he  hath  spread  a  net 
for  my  feet,  he  hath  turned  me  back:  he  hath  made 
me  desolate  and  faint  all  the  day. 

The  yoke  of  my  transgressions  is  bound  by  his 
hand:  they  are  wreathed,  and  come  up  upon  my 
neck:  he  hath  made  my  strength  to  fall,  the  Lord 
hath  delivered  me  into  their  hands,  from  whom  I 
am  not  able  to  rise  up.^ 

Any  one  who  reads  this  passage  for  the  first  time 
will  agree,  I  think,  that  it  has  no  suggestion  that  the 
poet  was  tied  to  any  artificial  form.  Not  only  has 
this  Hebrew  poetry  advanced  to  the  invention  of 
elaborate  forms  of  art,  but  it  has  gone  to  the  further 
point  of  complete  mastery  of  them;  so  that  the  in- 
tense thought  and  feeling  of  the  poet  flows  freely 
and  naturally  into  moulds  which  one  would  expect 
to  be  intolerable  bonds.  One  thinks  of  Milton's 
great  sonnets  as  examples  in  English  of  this  mas- 
terful acceptance  of  seemingly  impossible  bondage. 
Here  is  that  on  The  Late  Massacre  in  Piemont : 

Avenge,  O   Lord,   thy   slaughter'd  saints,  whose 

bones. 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold; 
Even  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old. 
When  all  our  fathers  worshipp'd  stocks  and  stones. 
Forget  not:  in  thy  book  record  their  groans 

^  Lam.  i.  12-15. 


THE  POETRY  101 

Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piemontese,  that  roll'd 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks.    Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 
To   Heaven.      Their    martyr 'd   blood    and  ashes 

sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 
The  triple  Tyrant,  that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundred-fold,  who,  having  learnt  thy  way, 
Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe. 

Here  as  in  Lamentations^  and  in  most  of  the 
alphabetic  psalms,  the  feeling  of  the  poet  is  wrought 
to  such  heat  that  it  fuses  the  barriers  of  form  and 
pours  itself  forth  with  its  freedom  endowed  with  new 
force  and  weight.  When  men  can  utter  their  feel- 
ings with  so  little  let  and  hindrance  from  forms  as 
artificial  as  the  sonnet  or  the  alphabetic  poem,  we 
may  assume  that  the  art  of  poetry  has  reached  a 
high  degree  of  perfection.  But  in  such  poetry  we 
have  come  a  long  way  from  the  undeliberate  and 
spontaneous  outburst  of  triumph  which  we  find  in 
the  Song  of  Deborah,  though  that  in  itself  speaks 
of  long  ages  of  practice  and  development. 

So  far  I  have  spoken  chiefly  of  the  early  poetry, 
and  of  Psalms  and  Lamentations.  Besides  these,  and 
coming  like  them  from  the  later  period,  is  the  great 
series  of  poems  which  make  up  the  book  of  Job:  all 
the  early  chapters  of  this  great  book  deal  with  the 


102  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

problem  which  of  all  others  in  these  days  of  bitter 
despair  brought  even  blacker  depths  of  distress  to 
the  soul  of  the  pious  Jew:  how  could  he  reconcile 
it  with  the  promises  of  Jehovah  that  the  heathen  and 
the  wicked  were  obviously  prosperous,  while  he  who 
served  him  so  faithfully  suffered  such  bitter  misery  ? 
In  chapter  xxviii  comes  the  poem  in  praise  of  wis- 
dom, and  after  the  somewhat  unnecessary  piety  of 
Elihu,  the  splendid  poems  of  the  later  chapters  with 
the  answer  of  Jehovah  from  the  whirlwind  and  the 
stirring  descriptions  of  the  horse,  of  behemoth,  and 
of  leviathan. 

In  Proverbs,  besides  the  great  mass  of  shrewd  and 
penetrating  apothegms  there  are  several  series  of 
short  poems  in  praise  of  wisdom,  and  mingled  in 
with  these  certain  little  poems  of  manners,  of  which 
the  following  is  an  example : 

Who  hath  woe?  who  hath  sorrow?  who  hath 
contentions?  who  hath  babbUng?  who  hath  wounds 
without  cause?  who  hath  redness  of  eyes? 

They  that  tarry  long  at  the  wine;  they  that  go 
to  seek  mixed  wine. 

Look  not  thou  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red, 
when  it  giveth  his  colour  in  the  cup,  when  it  moveth 
itself  aright. 

At  the  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent,  and  stingeth 
like  an  adder. ^ 

1  Proy,  xxiii.  29-32, 


THE  POETRY  103 

And  at  the  end  of  the  book  there  is  the  alphabetic 
poem  in  praise  of  the  virtuous  woman. 

Besides  all  these  poems  there  is  the  book  which 
we  know  as  the  Song  of  Solomon.  For  many  ages 
it  has  been  the  custom  of  the  Church  to  interpret 
this  book  symbolically;  and  the  headings  of  the 
chapters  in  our  Authorised  Version  follow  this  cus- 
tom. Of  more  recent  years,  however,  scholars  have 
recognized  that  these  warm  and  vigorous  lyrics  are 
the  expression  of  a  more  earthly  love,  and  that  the 
book  is  probably  a  collection  of  folk  songs  sung  at 
wedding  festivals.  At  first  under  this  view  the  book 
was  supposed  to  be  a  drama,  in  which  Solomon 
makes  love  to  the  Shulamite  maiden.  There  are 
many  difficulties  with  this  theory  of  the  book,  how- 
ever, not  the  least  among  which  is  the  fact  that  the 
scholars  who  hold  it  cannot  agree  whether  there  are 
two  or  three  actors,  nor  on  the  limits  of  the  acts. 
When  to  this  difficulty  is  added  the  fact  that  if  the 
book  be  a  drama  it  stands  unique  not  only  in  Hebrew 
literature,  but  also,  I  believe,  in  Semitic  literature, 
we  may  fairly  turn  to  some  less  exacting  theory. 
That  may  be  found  in  the  idea  which  is  constantly 
gaining  ground  that  the  book  preserves  a  collection 
of  fragTQents  of  wedding  songs  sung  at  a  ceremony 
which  still  persists  in  Syria  to-day,  in  which  the 
bride  and  groom  are  feasted  for  a  week  under  the 


104  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

guise  of  queen  and  king,  with  many  songs  in  praise 
of  their  beauty  and  prowess.  Thus  this  book  would 
save  for  us  a  fragment  from  a  whole  field  of  poetry 
otherwise  lost.  The  theory  certainly  explains  the 
unrestrained  fervor  of  these  poems. 

Finally,  no  consideration  of  the  nature  of  Hebrew 
poetry  can  leave  out  of  account  the  fact  that,  at  any 
rate  in  the  earlier  times,  the  prophets  delivered  their 
messages,  whether  of  reproof  or  of  comfort,  of  new 
and  uplifting  conceptions  of  religion,  or  of  guidance 
for  political  action,  in  a  form  which  was  as  much 
poetical  as  is  that  of  Job,  though  it  is  not  so  regular. 
It  may  be  closely  compared  to  the  Song  of  Deborah 
or  to  David's  Lament  over  Saul  and  Jonathan.  Here 
is  an  example  from  the  prophet  Amos,  and  one  from 
Isaiah : 

Can  two  walk  together,  except  they  be  agreed? 
Will  a  lion  roar  in  the  forest,  when  he  hath  no 

prey?  will  a  young  lion  cry  out  of  his  den,  if  he 

have  taken  nothing? 

Can  a  bird  fall  in  a  snare  upon  the  earth,  where 

no  gin  is  for  him?  shall  one  take  up  a  snare  from 

the  earth,  and  have  taken  nothing  at  all? 

Shall  a  trumpet  be  blown  in  the  city,  and  the 

people  not  be  afraid?  shall  there  be  evil  in  a  city, 

and  the  Lord  hath  not  done  it? 

The  lion  hath  roared,  who  will  not  fear?  the  Lord 
God  hath  spoken,  who  can  but  prophesy?  ^ 
»  Amos  iii.  3-6,  8. 


THE  POETRY  105 

Hear,  O  heavens;  and  give  ear,  0  earth:  for  the 
Lord  hath  spoken,  I  have  nourished  and  brought 
up  children,  and  they  have  rebelled  against  me. 

The  ox  knoweth  his  owner,  and  the  ass  his 
master's  crib:  but  Israel  doth  not  know,  my  people 
doth  not  consider. 

Ah  sinful  nation,  a  people  laden  with  iniquity, 
a  seed  of  evil  doers,  children  that  are  corrupters: 
they  have  forsaken  the  Lord,  they  have  provoked 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel  unto  anger,  they  *are  gone 
away  backward. 

Why  should  ye  be  stricken  any  more?  ye  will 
revolt  more  and  more:  the  whole  head  is  sick,  and 
the  whole  heart  faint. 

From  the  sole  of  the  foot  even  unto  the  head 
there  is  no  soundness  in  it;  but  wounds,  and  bruises, 
and  putrifying  sores:  they  have  not  been  closed, 
neither  bound  up,  neither  mollified  \\4th  ointment. 

Your  country  is  desolate,  your  cities  are  burned 
with  fire:  your  land,  strangers  devour  it  in  your 
presence,  and  it  is  desolate,  as  overthrown  by 
strangers. 

And  the  daughter  of  Zion  is  left  as  a  cottage  in  a 
vineyard,  as  a  lodge  in  a  garden  of  cucumbers,  as 
a  besieged  city. 

Except  the  Lord  of  hosts  had  left  unto  us  a  very 
small  remnant,  we  should  have  been  as  Sodom,  and 
we  should  have  been  like  unto  Gomorrah. ^ 

In   some   cases   the   prophet   adopted   not   only  the 

verses  of  poetry  but  also  more  extended  forms.     Li 

1  Isaiah  i.  2-9. 


106  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Isaiah  ix—x  there  are  four  strophes  or  stanzas,  each 
ending  with  the  refrain:  "For  all  this  his  anger  is 
not  turned  away,  but  his  hand  is  stretched  out  still." 
Both  Jeremiah  and  Ezehiel  have  several  examples  of 
the  Qinah  or  Lamentation  measure,  one  of  the  recog- 
nized modes  of  Hebrew  poetry,  in  which  the  second 
member  being  shorter  than  the  first  produces  a  fall- 
ing cadence.  It  is  the  measure  of  all  the  chapters 
of  Lamentations.  The  origin  of  the  poetical  form  of 
the  prophecies  is,  in  part  at  any  rate,  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  prophets  uttered  their  oracles  in  a  state 
of  high  emotional  tension,  when  the  ordinary  beat 
of  prose  would  have  been  inadequate  to  give  expres- 
sion to  the  prophet's  superheated  imagination.  The 
poetical  form  was  thus  a  necessity  of  expression  for 
them. 

The  art  of  poetry  does  not  come  to  an  end,  how- 
ever, with  the  Old  Testament  times.  In  the  !New 
Testament  the  canticles  in  the  early  chapters  of  8t. 
Luke  show  what  beautiful  poems  could  be  written 
at  the  very  beginning  of  our  era.  The  Magnificat 
and  the  Nunc  Dimittis  and  the  Benedictus,  as  they 
are  called  in  the  Booh  of  Common  Prayer,  are  of  the 
nature  of  the  psalms,  but  not  restricted  by  being 
adapted  to  the  temple  service.  Their  golden  and 
mature  beauty  brings  the  psalm-writing  to  a  close 
for  us   at   almost   its   highest   point.      In   language 


THE  POETRY  107 

these  poems  are  saturated  with  the  idioms  and  fig- 
ures of  the  Old  Testament  poetry,  but  adapted  with 
a  new  vividness  of  imagination  to  the  occasions  which 
give  them  birth;  in  them  the  passionate  distress  and 
jubilation  of  Job  and  of  the  Psalms  give  way  to  a 
confident  and  settled  hope.  In  place  of  the  fierce 
workings  of  the  soul  of  a  nation  in  anguish  these 
poems  declare  the  serenity  and  peace  which  herald 
the  dawn  of  the  new  era. 


n 

Let  us  now  turn  to  a  more  specific  consideration  of 
this  poetry  as  we  read  it  in  our  English  Bible:  we 
must  begin,  however,  by  looking  at  the  principles 
which  governed  Hebrew  verse.  These  principles  can 
be  recovered  only  in  part,  but  fortunately  the  one 
principle  which  really  affects  the  form  of  the  English 
has  been  clearly  made  out,  the  principle  of  parallel 
structure:  in  the  Hebrew  poetry  the  line  was  the 
unit,  and  the  second  line  balanced  the  first,  com- 
pleting or  supplementing  its  meaning.  The  first 
verse  of  Psalm  cl  is  a  good  example :  "  Praise  God 
in  his  sanctuary;  praise  him  in  the  firmament  of  his 
power.''  This  principle  could  be  applied  to  produce 
considerable  variety.  The  second  member  of  the 
verse  might  be  synonymous  with  the  first,  as  in  the 


108  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

example  I  have  just  quoted.  It  might  be  in  antithe- 
sis, as  "A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath :  but  griev- 
ous words  stir  up  anger."  It  might  add  something  to 
complete  the  thought :  "  By  the  rivers  of  Babylon, 
there  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept,  when  we  remem- 
bered Zion.'^  Or  it  might  be  the  application  of  a 
figure :  "  A  word  fitly  spoken  is  like  apples  of  gold 
in  pictures  of  silver,''  or  ^^  As  the  door  turneth  upon 
its  hinges,  so  doth  the  slothful  upon  his  bed."  Some- 
times the  first  member  of  one  line  took  its  thought 
from  a  word  in  the  last  member  of  the  line  before. 

I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from 
whence  cometh  my  help. 

My  help  cometh  from  the  Lord,  which  made 
heaven  and  earth.^ 

There  might  be  more  than  two  lines  to  complete  the 
verse :  the  normal  form  of  the  colloquies  in  Job  con- 
sists in  a  balance  of  couplets: 

My  brethren  have  dealt  deceitfully  as  a  brook, 
and  as  the  stream  of  brooks  they  pass  away; 

Which  are  blackish  by  reason  of  the  ice,  and 
wherein  the  snow  is  hid: 

What  time  they  wax  warm,  they  vanish:  when 
it  is  hot  they  are  consumed  out  of  their  place. 

The  paths  of  their  way  are  turned  aside;  they 
go  to  nothing,  and  perish.^ 

1  Ps.  cxxi.  1-2.  2  Job  vi.  15-18. 


THE   POETRY  109 

In  the  Qinah  or  Lamentation  measure,  as  I  have  said, 
the  second  member  of  the  line  was  shorter  than  the 
first.  Even  in  the  translation  the  effect  can  be  felt, 
as  in  Lamentations y  of  a  falling  cadence  which  makes 
the  poem  almost  seem  as  if  it  were  written  in  a  minor 
key.  But  whatever  the  variety  of  form,  the  unvary- 
ing element  in  the  Hebrew  poetry  is  the  constant 
balance  of  lines  of  about  equal  length. 

This  principle,  however,  was  not  rediscovered 
until  a  century  after  our  translation  was  made. 
Therefore  the  men  who  made  our  translation  did 
not  attempt  to  arrange  the  lines  in  a  different  form 
from  the  prose  of  the  rest  of  the  book.  The  result 
has  been  in  the  English  to  produce  a  kind  of  writing 
which  is  unique  in  our  literature,  since  it  is  neither 
regular  prose  nor  regular  poetry,  but  shares  the 
power  of  both.  It  has  the  strong  balance  and 
regularity  which  result  from  this  underlying  paral- 
lel structure  of  the  Hebrew,  and  at  the  same  time 
all  the  freedom  and  naturalness  of  prose.  When 
in  reading  the  historical  books  one  comes  across  a 
poem  the  difference  in  effect  is  striking:  without 
one's  realizing  why  the  style  suddenly  seems  as  it 
were  to  take  on  energy  and  movement.  I  cite  an 
example  from  Joshua: 

Then  spake  Joshua  to  the  Lord  in  the  day  when 
the  Lord  delivered  up  the  Amorites  before  the 


no  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

children  of  Israel,  and  he  said  in  the  sight  of  Israel, 
Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon;  and  thou.  Moon, 
in  the  valley  of  Ajalon. 

And  the  sun  stood  still,  and  the  moon  stayed, 
until  the  people  had  avenged  themselves  upon 
their  enemies.  Is  not  this  written  in  the  book  of 
Jasher?  So  the  sun  stood  still  in  the  midst  of  the 
heaven,  and  hasted  not  to  go  down  about  a  whole 
day.i 

Here  the  strong  balance  of  the  lines  of  the  poem 
strengthens  the  rhythm,  so  that  as  the  poem  stands 
imbedded  in  the  prose  it  seems  almost  excited  in 
utterance. 

On  the  other  hand,  since  in  the  English  this  bal- 
ance and  strong  rhythm  are  always  united  to  entire 
freedom  this  Biblical  poetry  is  quite  clear  of  any  sug- 
gestion of  artificiality  or  sophistication.  For  us  to- 
day verse  and  poetry  are  a  mode  of  utterance  apart 
from  the  speech  of  every-day  life.  They  are  art,  and 
art  carries  always  for  us  the  implication  of  an  atten- 
tion to  form  which  makes  impossible  an  entirely 
unstudied  spontaneity.  Even  blank  verse,  the  freest 
of  all  our  forms  of  poetry,  is  lacking  in  the  natural- 
ness of  prose.  Consider  this  passage  from  the  fourth 
act  of  Richard  II : 

Many  a  time  hath  banish 'd  Norfolk  fought 

For  Jesu  Christ  in  glorious  Christian  field, 

» Josh.  X.  12-13. 


THE   POETRY  111 

Streaming  the  ensign  of  the  Christian  cross 
Against  black  pagans,  Turks,  and  Saracens; 
And  toil'd  with  works  of  war,  retired  himself 
To  Italy;  and  there  at  Venice  gave 
His  body  to  that  pleasant  country's  earth, 
And  his  pure  soul  unto  his  captain  Christ, 
Under  whose  colors  he  had  fought  so  long. 

This  is  as  simple  as  it  can  be;  there  are  only  two 
adjectives  which  are  not  a  necessary  part  of  the 
meaning,  and  no  other  attempt  to  adorn  or  beautify 
the  facts  than  comes  from  the  verse  itself.  Yet  as 
compared  with  the  earnest  solemnity  of  the  Psalms 
or  of  Job  it  is  the  writing  of  a  man  who  is  playing 
at  life:  it  is  the  efflorescence  of  feeling  rather  than 
an  irrepressible  and  inevitable  expression  of  it. 
Even  the  great  soliloquies  in  Hamlet  produce  some- 
thing of  the  same  effect:  for  all  their  searching  into 
the  foundations  of  the  human  soul  they  are  still 
play-acting,  a  noble  blossoming  out  of  the  imagina- 
tion in  a  noble  time,  if  you  like,  but  still  flowers 
from  a  "  garden  of  pleasant  delights,"  to  modify  the 
title  of  one  of  the  Elizabethan  poetry  books.  The 
noble  sonnet  in  which  Milton  poured  out  his 
prophetic  indignation  which  I  have  quoted  seems  to 
be  an  exception,  and  there  are  a  few  great  poems  of 
our  own  day,  such  as  Tennyson's  Crossing  the  Bar 
and   Mr.    Kipling's   Recessional   and    White   Mans 


112  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Burden,  which  sum  up  in  burning  phrase  the  feel- 
ing of  a  race.  But  even  these,  beside  the  poetry 
of  the  Old  Testament,  only  emphasize  the  fact  that 
the  poet  is  for  us  a  man  apart,  a  seer  looking 
on  at  life  and  penetrating  its  mysteries  by  the 
flash  of  genius:  whereas  these  psalms  are  part  of 
the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  Jewish  life.  In  them 
there  are  no  rules  of  art  between  us  and  the  soul 
of  the  nation.  In  this  Old  Testament  poetry  as  we 
read  it  in  the  Authorised  Version  we  find  the 
heightened  beat  of  the  rhythm,  which  expresses 
strength  of  emotion,  and  which  is  the  peculiar  virtue 
of  poetry;  and  we  have  it  combined  with  an  entire 
freedom  and  naturalness  which  forestall  any  stray- 
ing of  our  attention  from  the  message  to  the  form 
in  which  it  is  couched.  It  is  in  large  part  because 
of  this  unique  form  that  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment seems  so  much  a  universal  and  unstudied 
expression  of  the  deepest  feeling.  Thus  the  very 
fact  that  our  translators  made  no  attempt  to  re- 
produce the  exact  form  of  the  verse  in  English  has 
added  to  its  power;  and  I  am  inclined  to  suspect  that 
the  modem  fashion  of  printing  the  poetry  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  broken  lines  is  quite  as  much  of 
a  hindrance  as  a  help  to  the  reader  who  wishes  to 
get  the  full  feeling  which  it  contains.  One  hears 
grumbling  to-day  at  the   difficulty  imposed  on  our 


THE  POETRY  113 

reading  of  tlie  Bible  by  the  division  into  verses.  We 
may  well  remember  that  when  the  Bible  was  known 
thoroughly  and  universally,  it  was  always  so  read. 
We  may  assume,  then,  that  the  Hebrew  poetry  when 
translated  into  an  English  which  knew  nothing  of 
its  technical  rules  created  for  us  a  new  kind  of 
writing,  which,  standing  between  our  verse  and  our 
prose,  shared  in  the  especial  virtues  and  expressive- 
ness of  each. 


in 


Let  us  now  go  a  step  further  and  see  how  the 
language  itself  affected  this  poetry  which  we  are 
studying.  We  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter  how 
little  apparatus  the  Hebrew  language  had  for  ex- 
pressing any  complication  of  thought  through  vari- 
ety and  modification  of  sentences  and  their  structure : 
it  is  a  closely  related  fact  that  its  vocabulary  had  no 
words  except  for  the  concrete  objects  of  the  external 
world.  All  the  words  of  the  old  Hebrew  went  back 
immediately  to  things  of  sense,  and  in  consequence 
even  their  every-day  language  was  figurative  in  a 
way  which  we  can  hardly  imagine.  The  verb  to  he 
jealous  was  a  regular  form  of  the  verb  to  glow;  the 
noun  truth  was  derived  from  the  verb  meaning  to 
propj  to  build,  or  to  make  firm.     The  word  for  self 


114  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

was  also  the  word  for  hone.  To  quote  Renan  again: 
^'  Anger  is  expressed  in  Hebrew  in  a  throng  of  ways, 
each  picturesque,  and  each  borrowed  from  physio- 
logical facts.  Now  the  metaphor  is  taken  from  the 
rapid  and  animated  breathing  which  accompanies  the 
passion,  now  from  heat  or  from  boiling,  now  from 
the  act  of  a  noisy  breaking,  now  from  shivering. 
Discouragement  and  despair  are  expressed  by  the 
melting  of  the  heart,  fear  by  the  loosening  of  the 
reins.  Pride  is  portrayed  by  the  holding  high  of 
the  head,  with  the  figure  straight  and  stiff.  Pa- 
tience is  a  long  breathing,  impatience  short  breathing, 
desire  is  thirst  or  paleness.  Pardon  is  expressed  by 
a  throng  of  metaphors  borrowed  from  the  idea  of 
covering,  of  hiding,  of  coating  over  the  fault.  In 
Job  God  sews  up  sins  in  a  sack,  seals  it,  then 
throws  it  behind  him:  all  to  signify  that  he  forgets 
them.  .  .  .  Other  more  or  less  abstract  ideas  have 
found  their  symbol  in  the  Semitic  languages  in  a 
like  manner.  The  idea  of  truth  is  drawn  from 
solidity,  or  stability;  that  of  beauty  from  splendor, 
that  of  good  from  straightness,  that  of  evil  from 
swerving  or  the  curved  line,  or  from  stench.  To 
create  is  primitively  to  mould,  to  decide  is  to  cut, 
to  tJiinlc  is  to  speak.  Bone  signifies  the  substance,  the 
essence  of  a  thing,  and  serves  in  Hebrew  for  our 
pronoun  self.     What  distinguishes  the  Semitic  Ian- 


THE  POETRY  115 

guages  from  the  Aryan  is  that  this  primitive  union 
of  sensation  and  idea  persists, — so  that  in  each  word 
one  still  hears  the  echo  of  the  primitive  sensations 
which  determined  the  choice  of  the  first  makers  of 
the  language." 

This  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  language  and 
one  of  the  accepted  doctrines  of  modern  psychology, 
— the  theory  commonly  known  as  the  James-Lange 
theory  of  the  emotions, — fit  together  like  the  two 
parts  of  a  puzzle.  According  to  this  theory  emotion 
is  inseparable  from  sensation,  or  rather,  emotion 
consists  of  a  mass  or  complex  of  bodily  sensations. 
Professor  James  sums  it  up  in  the  following  ques- 
tions :  ''  What  kind  of  an  emotion  of  fear  would  be 
left  if  the  feeling  neither  of  quickened  heart-beats 
nor  of  shallow  breathing,  neither  of  trembling  lips 
nor  of  weakened  limbs,  neither  of  goose-flesh  nor 
of  visceral  stirrings,  were  present,  it  is  quite  im- 
possible for  me  to  think.  Can  one  fancy  the  state 
of  rage  and  picture  no  ebullition  in  the  chest,  no 
flushing  of  the  face,  no  dilatation  of  the  nostrils,  no 
clenching  of  the  teeth,  no  impulse  to  vigorous  action, 
but  in  their  stead  limp  muscles,  calm  breathing,  and 
a  placid  face?  The  present  writer  for  one,  certainly 
cannot. — In  like  manner  of  grief:  what  would  it  be 
without  its  tears,  its  sobs,  its  suffocation  of  the  heart, 
its  pangs  in  the  breastbone  ?    A  f eelingless  cognition 


116  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

that  certain  circumstances  are  deplorable,  and  noth- 
ing more.  Every  passion  in  turn  tells  the  same 
story.  A  purely  disembodied  human  emotion  is  a 
nonentity."  ^ 

The  Hebrew  language  is  an  unfailing  illustration 
of  this  theory:  it  expressed  emotion  always  by  nam- 
ing the  sensations  of  which  the  emotion  consists. 
Here  is  an  expression  from  the  Psalms  of  helpless 
despair: 

Save  me,  O  God;  for  the  waters  are  come  in  unto 
my  soul. 

I  sink  in  deep  mire,  where  there  is  no  standing: 
I  am  come  into  deep  waters,  where  the  floods 
overflow  me. 

I  am  weary  of  my  crying:  my  throat  is  dried: 
mine  eyes  fail  while  I  wait  for  my  God.^ 

Notice  the  number  of  sensations  which  are  named; 
^^  my  throat  is  dried,"  "  mine  eyes  fail,"  and  the 
sensation  of  sinking  in  deep  mire,  with  all  its  im- 
plication of  spasmodic  and  desperate  struggling. 
Another  example  may  be  found  in  the  following  pas- 
sage in  Job ;  and  here  again  notice  how  many  actual 
sensations  are  named: 

Now  a  thing  was  secretly  brought  to  me,  and 
mine  ear  received  a  little  thereof. 

In  thoughts  from  the  visions  of  the  night,  when 
deep  sleep  falleth  on  men, 
*  W.  James,  Psychology,  vol.  ii.,  p.  452.  '  Ps.  Ixix.  1-3. 


THE   POETRY  117 

Fear  came  upon  me,  and  trembling,  which  made 
all  my  bones  to  shake. 

Then  a  spirit  passed  before  my  face;  the  hair  of 
my  flesh  stood  up: 

It  stood  still,  but  I  could  not  discern  the  form 
thereof:  an  image  was  before  mine  eyes,  there  was 
silence  and  I  heard  a  voice,  saying, 

Shall  mortal  man  be  more  just  than  God?  shall 
a  man  be  more  pure  than  his  Maker?  ^ 

The  shaking  of  the  bones,  the  hair  of  the  flesh 
standing  up,  the  sense  of  an  object  indistinctly  pres- 
ent, the  silence,  all  go  together  to  make  a  most  vivid 
description  of  the  terror  that  flies  by  night;  and  here 
again  the  emotion  is  set  forth  by  means  of  the  con- 
crete sensations  of  which  it  consists.  For  a  somewhat 
different  example,  let  me  cite  another  passage  from 
the  Psalms,  the  first  few  verses  of  what  is  known  as 
the  Venite  in  the  Booh  of  Common  Prayer ;  here  the 
emotion  of  joyful  worship  is  expressed  by  the  acts 
in  which  it  is  expressed : 

O  come,  let  us  sing  unto  the  Lord:  let  us  make 
a  joyful  noise  to  the  rock  of  our  salvation. 

Let  us  come  before  his  presence  with  thanksgiv- 
ing, and  make  a  joyful  noise  unto  him  with  psalms. 

For  the  Lord  is  a  great  God,  and  a  great  King 
above  all  gods. 

In  his  hand  are  the  deep  places  of  the  earth: 
the  strength  of  the  hills  is  his  also. 
1  Job  iv.  12-17. 


118  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

The  sea  is  his,  and  he  made  it:  and  his  hands 
formed  the  dry  land. 

O  come,  let  us  worship  and  bow  down:  let  us 
kneel  before  the  Lord  our  Maker.^ 

Here  though  the  emotion  is  more  spiritual  than  in 
the  other  cases,  yet  it  is  still  phrased  in  terms  of 
bodily  sensation,  the  singing,  the  joyful  noise,  the 
bowing  down  and  kneeling.  Often  the  emotion,  in- 
stead of  being  set  forth  by  the  bodily  sensation  that 
constitutes  it,  is  indirectly  portrayed  by  naming  the 
concrete  objects  which  inevitably  produce  these 
sensations. 

Thou  visitest  the  earth,  and  waterest  it:  thou 
greatly  enrichest  it  with  the  river  of  God,  which 
is  full  of  water:  thou  preparest  them  corn,  when 
thou  hast  so  provided  for  it. 

Thou  waterest  the  ridges  thereof  abundantly: 
thou  settlest  the  furrows  thereof:  thou  makest  it 
soft  with  showers:  thou  blessest  the  springing 
thereof. 

Thou  crownest  the  year  with  thy  goodness;  and 
thy  paths  drop  fatness. 

They  drop  upon  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness: 
and  the  little  hills  rejoice  on  every  side. 

The  pastures  are  clothed  with  flocks ;  the  valleys 
also  are  covered  over  with  corn;  they  shout  for 
joy,  they  also  sing. 2 

'  Ps.  xcv.  1-6. 
3  Ps.  Ixv.  9-13. 


THE  POETRY  119 

Such  a  passage  arouses  all  the  sensations  of  a  warm 
day  in  spring  when  a  man  walks  with  head  erect, 
his  lungs  filled  with  the  warm,  rich  air,  and  his 
nostrils  opened  to  the  manifold  sweet  smells  of 
the  earth  and  of  the  growing  things  about  him. 
The  deep  emotion  of  content  and  happiness  is  thus 
expressed  not  by  naming  the  sensations  but  by 
naming  the  objects  which  inevitably  produce  them, 
a  mode  of  expression  which  is  just  as  powerful  as 
the  other. 

Comparatively  simple  cases  like  these  will  show, 
I  think,  how  the  principle  works  out:  that  the  nam- 
ing of  two  or  three  specific  sensations  or  of  a  few 
concrete  objects  carries  with  it  a  large  and  com- 
plex mental  state  which  taken  all  together  is  the 
emotion  of  fear,  of  reverence,  or  of  joy.  And  seeing 
this  truth  clearly  for  the  simpler  cases  one  can  un- 
derstand how  it  explains  the  less  palpable  and  more 
complex  cases,  and  how  the  concrete  imagery  of 
such  a  passage  as  the  following  has  the  power  to 
express  feelings  and  thoughts  which  lie  still  deeper 
within  the  soul: 

Bless  the  Lord,  0  my  soul.  0  Lord  my  God, 
thou  art  very  great;  thou  art  clothed  with  honour 
and  majesty. 

Who  coverest  thyself  with  light  as  with  a  gar- 
ment: who  stretchest  out  the  heavens  Uke  a  curtain: 


120  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Who  layeth  the  beams  of  his  chambers  in  the 
waters:  who  maketh  the  clouds  his  chariot:  who 
walketh  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind: 

Who  maketh  his  angels  spirits;  his  ministers  a 
flaming  fire : 

Who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth,  that  it 
should  not  be  removed  for  ever. 

Thou  coveredst  it  with  the  deep  as  with  a  gar- 
ment: the  waters  stood  above  the  mountains.^ 

The  means  employed  are  the  same,  but  the  emotions 
to  be  expressed  being  larger  and  more  diffused  one 
cannot  follow  out  the  mechanism  of  the  expression 
so  definitely.  Nevertheless  the  unsurpassed  vivid- 
ness of  the  Hebrew  poetry  and  its  unfailing  hold  on 
our  imagination  may  be  ascribed  to  this  fact,  that 
it  always  expressed  emotions  directly  and  concretely 
through  sensations  instead  of  describing  them  by 
words  which  are  abstract  and  therefore  pale. 

We  can  go  even  further,  and  find  in  this  special 
characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  language  the  cause  for 
the  permanent  appeal  of  these  ancient  poems.  The 
great  body  of  our  sensations  and  feelings  does  not 
change  from  generation  to  generation.  The  horror 
of  despair  at  sinking  in  deep  mire,  the  dread  at  the 
creeping  mysteries  of  the  night,  or  the  delight  in 
uttering  forth  our  joy  in  song,  all  are  the  same  thing 
for  us  to-day  that  they  were  for  these  ancient 
1  Ps.  civ.  1-6. 


THE  POETRY  121 

Hebrews  two  thousand  years  ago  and  for  their  an- 
cestors a  thousand  years  before  them;  and  the  sight 
of  the  stars  in  the  great  field  of  heaven  lifts  us  out 
of  ourselves  in  the  same  way  that  it  has  moved  our 
ancestors  for  innumerable  generations.  We  mod- 
erns have  built  up  a  superstructure  of  abstract 
reasoning  which  they  did  not  have;  but  all  the  great 
mass  of  our  consciousness  is  the  same  that  it  has 
been  for  ages  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  as  it  will 
be  for  ages  to  come.  Thus  a  literature  which  is  able 
to  express  itself  through  these  inalterable  sensations 
has  a  permanence  of  power  impossible  to  any  litera- 
ture which  is  phrased  largely  in  abstractions  and  in 
inferences  from  these  sensations.  In  this  primitive 
simplicity  of  thought,  therefore,  we  can  find  one 
reason  at  any  rate  for  the  permanent  power  of  the 
Hebrew  poetry. 

Emotion  and  feeling,  however,  have  other  modes 
of  expression  than  through  the  connotation  of  words 
of  sensation:  their  most  typical  and  highest  expres- 
sion is  through  music.  Every  one  knows  that  music 
can  give  bodily  form  to  moods  far  too  impalpable 
and  evanescent  for  articulate  language.  Even  the 
man  who  has  no  ear  for  music  knows  what  it  is  to 
have  his  fiesh  stirred  and  his  feet  set  mo^dng  by  the 
playing  of  a  military  band ;  and  to  music-lovers  the 
full   rhythms   and   harmonies   of   a   great  orchestra 


122  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

reach  feelings  which  lie  so  deep  in  the  soul  that  no 
words  can  find  them.  Herein  lies  the  other  side 
of  the  power  of  literature:  since  it  stands  for  the 
spoken  word  it  can  borrow  some  of  this  power  of 
music  to  express  disembodied  emotion.  In  this 
power  our  Authorised  Version  sets  the  standard  for 
the  English  language:  it  is  throbbing  with  the  ear- 
nestness of  the  great  men  who  in  the  stress  of  the 
Reformation,  when  England  was  struggling  free 
from  the  power  of  the  Pope,  wrought  out  their  trans- 
lation of  the  Scriptures.  It  was  a  time  when  all 
writing  was  musical:  I  have  yet  to  meet  a  work 
of  the  sixteenth  century  written  in  the  bare  and  jolt- 
ing style  of  so  many  of  our  books  to-day.  To  the 
original  translators  and  to  the  revisers  who  followed 
them  we  owe  the  strong  and  moving  rhythm  and 
the  rich  but  subdued  music  which  gives  our  Bible 
its  capacity  of  uttering  forth  the  deep  things  of  the 
soul. 

One  source  of  this  rich  music  we  must  not  neg- 
lect: that  is  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate.  Later  on 
I  must  discuss  its  influence  more  fully;  here  I  will 
merely  point  out  that  all  the  men  who  made  our 
version  were  intimately  acquainted  with  it:  and  that 
its  most  notable  qualities  to  us  are  its  strong  rhythm 
and  its  rich  sonorousness  of  tone,  qualities  which 
more  than  all  others  express  earnestness  and  rever- 


THE  POETRY  123 

ence  of  feeling.  A  short  psalm,  "  Behold,  how  good 
and  how  pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together 
in  unity !  "  will  show  for  the  present  the  mar- 
vellous power  of  this  language  to  enrich  its  words 
with  ringing  music.  Notice  how  full  it  is  of  open 
vowels  and  liquid  consonants,  sounds  on  which  the 
voice  insensibly  dwells. 

Ecce,  quam  bonum  et  quam  jucundum  habitare 
fratres  in  unum: 

Sicut  unguentum  in  capite,  quod  descendit  in 
barbam,  barbam  Aaron. 

Quod  descendit  in  oram  vestimenti  ejus: 

Sicut  ros  Hermon,  qui  descendit  in  montem 
Sion, 

Quoniam  illic  mandavit  Dominus  benedictionem 
et  vitam  usque  in  saeculum. 

The  deepest  and  strongest  feelings  which  are  ex- 
pressed in  the  psalms  are  the  feelings  of  awe  in 
the  presence  of  the  omnipotent  God,  feelings  which 
are  naturally  expressed  in  worship.  'Now  music  is 
an  inseparable  part  of  worship;  and  we  may  well 
hold  that  this  music  of  the  Biblical  poetry  was  de- 
rived in  part  by  reflection  from  the  Yulgate.  Thus 
we  may  feel  that  we  have  in  our  English  some  share 
of  the  passionate  earnestness  of  St.  Jerome,  ringing 
down  through  the  centuries  to  deepen  and  enrich  the 
meaning  of  the  English. 


124  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 


lY 


!Now  let  us  turn  from  the  essential  questions  of 
style  which  concern  the  translation,  and  search  be- 
hind them  into  the  intensity  and  elevation  of  feel- 
ing which  made  this  marvellous  style  a  necessity  of 
expression.  Here  explanation  can  make  but  a  short 
step;  for  we  are  in  a  realm  where  the  only  ultimate 
explanation  is  the  fact  of  inspiration;  and  that  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  forces  above  and  beyond  our  present 
human  understanding.  We  can  see  a  little  further 
into  the  power  of  these  poems,  however,  if  we  take 
into  account  the  times  in  which  they  were  probably 
written  and  consider  the  experiences  which  called 
them  forth.  I  will  speak  here  only  of  the  Psalter 
and  Job, 

It  is  now  generally  held  by  scholars  of  the  modern 
school  that  the  Psalter  is  the  hymn  book  of  the 
second  temple ;  and  most  scholars  who  accept  the  new 
views  of  the  Bible  at  all  agree  that  some  of  the 
psalms  at  any  rate  were  composed  as  late  as  the  time 
of  the  Maccabean  revolution,  165  b.c.  The  dates  of 
the  separate  psalms  may  be  very  divergent.  Some  of 
them  may  have  been  originally  composed  before  the 
Exile,  some  of  them  perhaps  by  King  David  himself ; 


THE  POETRY  125 

but  as  the  Psalter  is  a  hymn  book  the  date  of  the  orig- 
inal composition  of  any  given  psalm  is  a  matter  of 
small  importance.  For  since  a  hymn  book  is  a  collec- 
tion of  poems  made  for  a  very  practical  purpose,  it 
has  no  reason  for  existence  if  it  does  not  express 
the  feelings  and  aspirations  of  the  generation  which 
uses  it.  Therefore  if  the  Psalter  as  we  have  it  comes 
from  the  latest  period  of  Jewish  history  it  must 
embody  the  sufferings  and  aspirations,  the  faith  and 
the  passionate  zeal  of  the  Jews  of  the  third  and 
the  second  centuries  before  Christ.  It  would  come, 
therefore,  from  nearly  the  most  critical  period  of 
their  history,  a  time  full  of  bitter  suffering  and  dis- 
tress, when  they  were  harassed  by  enemies  from 
without,  and  torn  by  dissensions  from  within.  In 
Psalms  Ixxiv  and  Ixxix  Jerusalem  is  described  as 
sacked  and  the  temple  profaned ;  and  the  outburst  of 
bitter  indignation  in  Psalm  Iv, 

But  it  was  thou,  a  man  mine  equal,  my  guide 
and  mine  acquaintance. 

We  took  sweet  counsel  together,  and  walked 
unto  the  house  of  God  in  company. 

Let  death  seize  upon  them,  and  let  them  go  down 
quick  into  hell :  for  ^dckedness  is  in  their  dwellings, 
and  among  them, 

is  probably  aimed  at  the  party  among  the  Jews  in 
these  centuries  which  was  ready  to  compromise  with 


126  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  heathen,  perhaps  even  to  contaminate  the  wor- 
ship of  Jehovah  by  the  assimilation  of  heathen  rites. 
The  depths  of  this  misery  is  sounded  by  many  of  the 
psalms,  as  the  faith  by  force  of  which  they  won  their 
way  through  the  furnace  of  affliction  is  measured  by 
such  glowing  words  as  those  of  Psalm  Ixviii : 

Let  God  arise,  let  his  enemies  be  scattered:  let 
them  also  that  hate  him  flee  before  him. 

As  smoke  is  driven  away,  so  drive  them  away: 
as  wax  melteth  before  the  fire,  so  let  the  wicked 
perish  at  the  presence  of  God. 

But  let  the  righteous  be  glad;  let  them  rejoice 
before  God:  yea,  let  them  exceedingly  rejoice. 

Sing  unto  God,  sing  praises  to  his  name:  extol 
him  that  rideth  upon  the  heavens  by  his  name 
JAH,  and  rejoice  before  him. 

A  father  of  the  fatherless,  and  a  judge  of  the 
widows,  is  God  in  his  holy  habitation. 

God  setteth  the  solitary  in  families:  he  bringeth 
out  those  which  are  bound  with  chains:  but  the 
rebellious  dwell  in  a  dry  land. 

O  God,  when  thou  wentest  forth  before  thy 
people,  when  thou  didst  march  through  the  wilder- 
ness; Selah: 

The  earth  shook,  the  heavens  also  dropped  at 
the  presence  of  God:  even  Sinai  itself  was  moved 
at  the  presence  of  God,  the  God  of  Israel. 

The  jubilant  triumph  of  some  of  the  psalms,  too, 
seems  to  reflect  such  an  unexpected  and  miraculous 


THE   POETRY  127 

escape  as  came  to  the  Jews  through  the  victories  of 
Judas  Maccaba3us: 

It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord,  than  to  put  con- 
fidence in  man: 

It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord,  than  to  put  con- 
fidence in  princes. 

All  nations  compassed  me  about:  but  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  will  I  destroy  them. 

They  compassed  me  about;  yea,  they  compassed 
me  about:  but  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  will  I 
destroy  them. 

They  compassed  me  about  like  bees;  they  are 
quenched  as  the  fire  of  thorns:  for  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  I  will  destroy  them. 

Thou  has  thrust  sore  at  me,  that  I  might  fall: 
but  the  Lord  helped  me. 

The  Lord  is  my  strength  and  song,  and  is  become 
my  salvation.^ 

Certainly  there  is  no  time  before  the  Exile  which 
will  furnish  the  background  of  hopeless  misery  and 
depression,  suddenly  interrupted  by  unbounded  joy 
and  thanksgiving,  which  lies  behind  the  Psalter  as 
a  whole.  The  very  intensity  and  desperateness  of 
the  suffering  and  the  suddenness  of  the  reaction  help 
us  to  understand  the  intensity  of  feeling  uttered 
forth  in  these  marvellous  poems. 

Job  also  comes  probably  from  the  Exile  or  the 
succeeding  century,  the  time  when,  as  we  have  seen, 
>  Ps.  cxviii.  8-14. 


128  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil  came  home  to  the 
Jews  with  such  bitter  poignancy.  Deuteronomy 
taught  them  that  Jehovah  would  reward  their  faith- 
fulness to  the  statutes  and  ordinances  which  he  had 
commanded  them,  and  that  he  would  punish  whoever 
disobeyed ;  and  in  the  manner  of  their  age  and  coun- 
try they  looked  for  an  immediate  reward  or  an  im- 
mediate punishment.  Yet  they  who  were  striving 
with  the  most  anxious  care  to  fulfil  every  jot  and 
tittle  of  the  law  were  crushed  by  poverty  and  oppres- 
sion, while  their  heathen  conquerors,  living  in  open 
defiance  of  the  laws  of  Jehovah,  grew  old  in  wealth 
and  happiness.  For  them,  and  especially  for  those 
whose  faith  was  strongest,  the  dilemma  must  have 
been  critical.  This  noble  poem  witnesses  to  the  ear- 
nestness with  which  they  attacked  the  problem  and  the 
triumphant  faith  with  which  they  came  back  to  the 
solution  that  the  ways  of  God  are  too  great  for  man 
to  understand,  that  the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  of  wisdom.  Job  utters  not  only 
the  w^hole  bitterness  of  their  despair,  but  also  the 
faith  in  the  omnipotence  of  their  God  which  rose 
untouched  by  difiiculties  and  sufferings. 

Then  the  Lord  answered  Job  out  of  the  whirl- 
wind, and  said, 

Who  is  this  that  darkeneth  counsel  by  words 
without  knowledge? 


THE   POETRY  129 

Gird  up  now  thy  loins  like  a  man;  for  I  will  de- 
mand of  thee,  and  answer  thou  me. 

Where  wast  thou  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  earth?  declare,  if  thou  hast  understanding. 

Who  hath  laid  the  measures  thereof,  if  thou 
knowest?  or  who  hath  stretched  the  line  upon  it? 

Whereupon  are  the  foundations  thereof  fastened? 
or  who  laid  the  corner  stone  thereof; 

When  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all 
the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy?^ 

This  truth,  that  the  Psalter  and  Job  are  the  em- 
bodiment of  intensely  real  emotions,  must  not  be  left 
out  of  account  in  reading  them.  The  way  in  which 
Job  solves  the  problems  it  discusses  I  must  consider 
at  greater  length  in  the  next  chapter;  here  we  can 
recognize  that  the  intensity  and  elevation  of  spirit 
which  give  it  its  nobility  spring  from  the  triumph 
of  an  inextinguishable  faith  in  a  desperate  crisis. 


Finally,  the  distinctive  character  of  Hebrew 
poetry  appears  in  a  significant  limitation,  which  is 
especially  illustrated  by  Job.  To  use  a  technical 
term,  Hebrew  poetry  never  reached  the  point  of  rep- 
resentation: in  other  words,  it  never  passed  beyond 
the  point  of  expressing  the  writer's  own  emotions  to 
^  Job  xxxviii.  1-7. 


130  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  point  where  he  could  imagine  himself  into  the 
feelings  of  other  persons^  whether  real  or  invented. 
The  same  limitation  appears  in  the  historical  books 
in  the  speeches  which  the  writers,  after  the  man- 
ner of  all  historians  of  antiquity,  whether  Orien- 
tal or  classical,  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  chief 
persons  of  the  history.  The  Deuteronomist  writers 
of  Kings,  for  example,  composing  a  prayer  which 
would  be  fitting  for  Solomon  at  the  dedication  of  the 
temple,  put  into  his  mouth  words  and  ideas  of  which 
the  people  of  Israel  had  no  knowledge  until  three 
hundred  years  after  his  death.  They  made  him 
speak  in  the  language  and  thought  of  Deuteronomy, 
a  book  which  was  called  forth  by  the  great  change 
in  the  fortunes  of  Israel  after  the  destruction  of 
Samaria.  They  could  not  imagine  to  themselves  how 
Solomon  would  really  have  felt;  all  they  could  do 
was  to  put  their  own  hopes  and  yearnings  into  his 
mouth.  This  lack  of  the  faculty  of  constructive 
imagination  is  a  chief  note  of  the  Hebrew  literature. 
In  the  poetry  this  limitation  resulted  in  the  ab- 
sence from  our  Old  Testament  of  all  poetry  which 
cannot  be  roughly  classified  as  lyrical.  The  Hebrew 
mind  had  no  apparatus  for  inventing  characters,  or 
for  understanding  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  other 
men.  Ostensibly  Job  is  either  a  drama  or  a  de- 
bate ;  yet  though  Satan  is  a  protagonist  in  the  prose 


THE  POETRY  131 

introduction,  he  is  not  mentioned  at  all  in  the  poem ; 
in  the  colloquies  the  speeches  of  the  three  friends  can 
be  interchanged  without  injury  to  the  book,  and  in 
Chapter  xxvii,  as  it  stands,  Job  shifts  over  and  occu- 
pies the  ground  which  has  been  held  by  his  friends 
against  him.  Clearly  the  authors  of  this  great  book 
came  into  no  clear  imagination  or  understanding  of 
Job  as  an  individual  and  consistent  character.  They 
made  no  effort  to  get  into  the  point  of  view  and 
temperament  of  the  ostensible  hero  of  the  poem: 
as  we  say  nowadays  they  made  no  attempt  to  create 
a  character.  He  is  best  understood  as  a  generalized 
figure  of  suffering  Israel,  a  conception  which  was 
apparently  dear  to  the  hearts  of  the  Jews  at  this 
period;  it  was  set  forth  by  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile 
in  several  passages  of  which  the  following  is  one: 

He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted,  yet  he 
opened  not  his  mouth:  he  is  brought  as  a  lamb  to 
the  slaughter,  and  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers 
is  dumb,  so  he  openeth  not  his  mouth. 

He  was  taken  from  prison  and  from  judgment: 
and  who  shall  declare  his  generation?  for  he  was 
cut  off  out  of  the  land  of  the  living:  for  the  trans- 
gression of  my  people  was  he  stricken. 

And  he  made  his  grave  with  the  wicked,  and 
with  the  rich  in  his  death;  because  he  had  done  no 
violence,  neither  was  any  deceit  in  his  mouth. 

Yet  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him;  he  hath 


132  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

put  him  to  grief:  when  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an 
offering  for  sin,  he  shall  see  his  seed,  he  shall 
prolong  his  days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall 
prosper  in  his  hand.^ 

The  same  idea  appears  in  certain  of  the  psalms: 

For  my  loins  are  filled  with  a  loathsome  disease : 
and  there  is  no  soundness  in  my  flesh. 

I  am  feeble  and  sore  broken:  I  have  roared  by 
reason  of  the  disquietness  of  my  heart. 

Lord,  all  my  desire  is  before  thee;  and  my  groan- 
ing is  not  hid  from  thee. 

My  heart  panteth,  my  strength  faileth  me:  as 
for  the  light  of  mine  eyes,  it  also  is  gone  from  me. 

My  lovers  and  my  friends  stand  aloof  from  my 
sore;  and  my  kinsmen  stand  afar  off. 

The}^  also  that  seek  after  my  life  lay  snares  for 
me :  and  they  that  seek  my  hurt  speak  mischievous 
things,  and  imagine  deceits  all  the  day  long. 

But  I,  as  a  deaf  man,  heard  not;  and  I  was  as  a 
dumb  man  that  openeth  not  his  mouth. 

Thus  I  was  as  a,  man  that  heareth  not,  and  in 
whose  mouth  are  no  reproofs.^ 

During  the  bitter  times  of  the  Exile,  and  the  cen- 
tury or  two  succeeding,  the  Jews  seem  to  have  found 
comfort  in  thus  figuring  themselves  as  a  nation 
which  was  suffering  because  of  its  very  faithfulness 
to  Jehovah,  and  to  have  had  a  melancholy  pleasure 
» Isa.  liii.  7-10.  '  Ps.  xxxviii.  7-15. 


THE  POETRY  133 

in  describing  these  sufferings  at  length,  always  with 
the  expression  of  the  hope  in  the  mercy  and  power 
of  their  God.  It  is  probable  that  Joh  can  thus  be 
best  understood.  In  a  sense  he  is  individualized, 
but  no  more  so  than  is  the  suffering  servant  of 
Jehovah  by  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  or  than  the 
suffering  Israel  described  in  the  Psalms.  If  one 
reads  the  poem  carefully,  one  will  see  that  it  could 
be  applied  to  many  men  of  a  considerable  variety 
of  temperaments;  indeed,  the  further  fact  that  the 
piety  of  the  Job  of  the  prologue,  which  consists  so 
much  in  offering  sacrifices,  is  different  from  the 
larger-minded  piety  of  the  Job  of  the  colloquies, 
seems  a  pretty  strong  proof  that  the  authors  had 
little  idea  of  what  we  mean  by  consistent  character- 
ization. They  made  no  effort  to  make  Job  indi- 
vidual in  the  sense  that  Hamlet  and  Henry  Esmond 
are  individuals;  furthermore,  there  is  no  evidence 
that  the  men  of  their  race  were  ever  conscious  of  the 
possibility  of  such  an  effort. 

This  unconsciousness  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
creative  imagination  marks  the  abyss  which  lies  be- 
tween the  Old  Testament  literature  and  our  modern 
literature.  From  the  time  of  the  Greeks  down  rep- 
resentative art  is  the  largest  and  most  important  part 
of  pure  literature.  All  the  drama,  all  story-writing, 
and  all  poetry  except  lyrical  are  representative,  in  that 


134  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

their  effort  is  to  set  forth  the  actions  and  feelings  of 
persons  whom  their  writers  know  only  indirectly  and 
by  force  of  the  creative  imagination.  In  the  Bible 
there  is  no  such  literature.  If  one  remembers  that 
the  only  other  work  with  which  English-speaking 
people  are  familiar,  which  comes  from  the  same 
Oriental  background  as  the  Bible,  is  the  Arabian 
Nights,  one  will  realize  better  the  distance  from  us 
of  this  Old  Testament  literature.  R.  L.  Stevenson 
pointed  out  in  his  essay  A  Gossip  on  Romance  that 
the  people  of  the  Arabian  Nights  are  mere  puppets ; 
that  their  stories  are  a  pure  succession  of  incident 
and  event,  unbroken  and  undiluted  by  any  under- 
standing of  character  on  the  part  of  the  authors,  or 
attempt  to  make  the  people  real.  These  Israelite 
writers  are  on  a  somewhat  higher  plane,  for  they 
could  tell  a  simple  story  in  terms  of  the  most  vivid 
detail;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  they  could  in  a  simple, 
unconscious  sort  of  way  make  the  different  actors  in 
their  stories  seem  like  distinct  people ;  but  their  crea- 
tive imagination  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  enable  them 
to  invent  a  character,  or  even  so  far  to  detach  them- 
selves from  their  own  experiences  as  to  imagine  con- 
sistently and  convincingly  the  mental  workings  of 
anyone  whose  circumstances  or  temperament  differed 
much  from  their  own.  We  shall  see  in  the  next 
chapter  that  Hebrew  thought  never  attained  to  ab- 


THE   POETRY  135 

stract  reasoning.  Here  I  wish  only  to  make  clear 
that  the  thought  of  Hebrew  authors  was  primitively 
simple;  it  was  never  able  to  push  beyond  its  own 
experience  in  order  to  create  that  of  other  men. 

In  this  limitation,  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  find 
part  of  the  power  of  this  literature.  The  Hebrew 
poetry  has  power  over  our  feelings  because  it  is  al- 
ways in  dead  earnest.  There  is  no  play-acting  here. 
When  we  see  or  read  Hamlet ,  or  Macbeth,  or  King 
Lear,  we  are  absorbed  in  the  distress  and  suffering 
pictured  before  us;  but  always  we  have  behind  our 
absorption  the  sense  of  detachment  from  real  affairs. 
Unconsciously  we  feel  that  we  can  afford  to  take 
part  by  imagination  in  the  suffering,  because  after 
all  it  is  not  real.  To  understand  and  appreciate  the 
poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  one  must  remember 
that  it  always  is  real.  The  sufferings,  or  the  joy, 
or  the  faith  are  the  personal  experience  of  real  men. 
Their  poetry  had  always  the  direct  and  practical 
purpose  of  unburdening  real  feeling:  there  is  no 
^'  make-believe  "  in  these  poems  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Even  in  Job  the  apparent  form  of  a  drama  is  the 
thinnest  of  masks  for  the  deep  feelings  which  lie  un- 
derneath. The  book  is  not  an  effort  of  the  author 
to  imagine  how  such  a  man  as  Job  would  have  felt 
under  such  trials,  but  rather  the  expression  of  actual 
distress  over  the  hopeless  plight  of  his  people.    The 


136  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

mental  tortures  under  which  Job  writhes  are  there- 
fore those  of  real  people  in  real  and  harrowing  per- 
plexity; and  the  overwhelming  power  of  the  answer 
of  the  Almighty  is  the  direct  witness  of  a  faith  which 
could  not  be  daunted  by  the  most  grievous  trials. 

Thus  we  may  bring  this  brief  survey  of  the  poetry 
of  the  Bible  to  an  end.  In  form  and  style  it  has 
power  which  springs  from  the  unblurred  concrete- 
ness  and  directness  of  the  old  Hebrew  language,  and 
from  the  strong  but  unconscious  rhythm  and  the 
richness  of  music.  Behind  the  manifold  variety  of 
the  imagery  and  the  deep  music  of  the  style,  we  can 
see,  and  not  too  vaguely,  the  intensity  of  faith  which 
soared  above  all  earthly  troubles  to  the  highest  con- 
ception of  God  yet  reached  by  man,  the  faith  which 
we  shall  trace  in  the  constantly  wider  and  more 
spiritual  messages  of  the  prophets,  rising  during  the 
period  which  produced  the  psalms  to  a  clear  grasp 
of  immortality  and  the  blessings  of  paradise. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE    WISDOM   BOOKS 


I  HAVE  already  pointed  out  that  since  the  Hebrew 
language  had  no  apparatus  for  embodying  any  com- 
plication of  thought,  all  the  narrative  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  extremely  simple  in  form.  In  like  man- 
ner we  have  seen  that  the  poetry  embodies  only  man's 
immediate  experience  and  the  deep  emotions  which 
are  his  reaction  to  that  experience,  and  that  the  Jews 
never  reached  the  point  of  figuring  to  themselves 
the  feelings  of  fictitious  persons.  As  in  the  narra- 
tive, the  mental  habit  behind  the  poetry  is  of  extreme 
simplicity. 

In  this  chapter  and  in  the  next  I  shall  discuss 
those  parts  of  the  Bible  which  contain  the  nearest 
approach  to  what  we  call  philosophising:  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  books  of  wisdom — Proverhs,  Ecclesi- 
astes  and  Job ;  and  in  the  New  Testament  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  the  Epistles.  I  shall  confine  the  dis- 
cussion of  them  almost  entirely  to  a  single  point, 

137 


138  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  habit  of  mind  and  the  manner  of  thought  which 
they  reveal  to  us;  for  we  shall  gain  much  light  on 
the  literature  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole  if  we  can  see 
wherein  the  mode  of  thought  of  these  ancient 
writers  was  similar  to  ours  and  wherein  it  was  dis- 
similar; moreover,  by  understanding  this  point  we 
shall  see  better  in  the  end  how  this  literature  which 
is  so  foreign  could  weave  itself  so  deeply  into  the 
texture  of  English  thought  and  speech. 

Proverbs  is  a  somewhat  miscellaneous  collection, 
in  part  of  short  poems  on  various  subjects,  in  still 
larger  part  of  the  shrewd  and  pithy  apothegms  in 
which  the  Oriental  mind  delighted  to  sum  up  its  ob- 
servations on  man  and  his  life.  It  begins  with  nine 
chapters  in  which  are  contained  a  number  of  short 
poems  generally  in  praise  of  wisdom,  though  some 
contain  particular  admonitions  and  warnings.  Then 
comes  the  main  portion  of  the  book,  which  is  also 
the  most  typical:  its  character  is  summed  up  in  the 
heading  of  the  tenth  chapter  in  the  Authorised  Ver- 
sion, "  From  this  chapter  to  the  five  and  twentieth 
are  sundry  observations  of  moral  virtues,  and  their 
contrary  vices."  This  classification,  however,  is 
somewhat  too  sweeping,  for  at  verse  17  of  Chapter 
xxii  begins  a  new  section,  the  so-called  Words  of 
the  Wise.  Here  instead  of  separated  and  isolated 
proverbs  we  have  brief  poems  on  various  subjects, 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  139 

sometimes  only  a  couple  of  verses  long,  sometimes 
six  or  eight  verses,  such  as  the  poem  on  the  drunkard 
v^hich  I  have  already  cited,  and  the  following  poem 
on  the  sluggard : 

I  went  by  the  field  of  the  slothful,  and  by  the 
vineyard  of  the  man  void  of  understanding; 

And,  lo,  it  was  all  grown  over  with  thorns,  and 
nettles  had  covered  the  face  thereof,  and  the  stone 
wall  thereof  was  broken  down. 

Then  I  saw,  and  considered  it  well:  I  looked 
upon  it,  and  received  instruction. 

Yet  a  little  sleep,  a  Uttle  slumber,  a  little  folding 
of  the  hands  to  sleep: 

So  shall  thy  poverty  come  as  one  that  travelleth; 
and  thy  want  as  an  armed  man.^ 

Then  follows  another  collection  of  separate  proverbs 
and  axioms,  "  proverbs  of  Solomon,  which  the  men 
of  Hezekiah  king  of  Judah  copied  out " ;  these,  how- 
ever, are  somewhat  classified,  as  is  recognized  by  such 
a  heading  as  that  of  Chapter  xxvi  in  the  Authorised 
Version,  "  Observations  about  fools,  about  sluggards, 
and  about  contentious  busybodies."  The  rest  of  the 
book  is  thoroughly  miscellaneous;  Chapter  xxx  be- 
gins with  a  very  obscure  passage  denominated  ^^  the 
words  of  Agur,"  and  runs  on  into  a  series  of  numer- 
ical proverbs,  such  as: 

^  Prov.  xxiv.  30-34. 


140  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

There  be  four  things  which  are  Httle  upon  the 
earth,  but  they  are  exceeding  wise: 

The  ants  are  a  people  not  strong,  yet  they  pre- 
pare their  meat  in  the  summer; 

The  conies  are  but  a  feeble  folk,  yet  make  they 
their  houses  in  the  rocks; 

The  locusts  have  no  king,  yet  go  they  forth  all 
of  them  by  bands; 

The  spider  taketh  hold  with  her  hands,  and  is  in 
kings'  palaces.i 

The  last  chapter  begins  with  the  "  words  of  king 
Lemuel,  the  prophecy  that  his  mother  taught  him," 
and  concludes  with  an  alphabetical  poem  which  de- 
scribes the  virtuous  woman.  Between  these  very 
different  parts  there  are  no  transitions  and  no  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  the  authors  or  compilers  to 
create  the  possibility  of  continuous  thought.  The 
canons  of  Hebrew  authorship  never  demanded  the 
welding  together  of  dissimilar  parts  into  a  single 
whole. 

The  exact  date  both  of  the  individual  proverbs 
and  poems  and  of  the  book  as  a  whole  is  indetermi- 
nable ;  but  in  its  present  state  the  book  like  the  other 
wisdom  books,  though  incorporating  material  which 
in  ultimate  origin  may  be  early,  comes  most  probably 
from  the  later  period  after  the  Exile  when  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Jews  became  so  much  widened.  To 
»  Prov.  XXX.  24-28. 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  141 

this  conclusion  point  the  tacit  assumption  of  mono- 
theism, the  absence  of  any  definite  national  traits, 
the  predominant  interest  in  urban  life,  the  somewhat 
technical  use  of  the  words  wisdom  and  the  wisBy  and 
the  general  unity  of  the  group  of  wisdom  books.  But 
after  all,  the  settlement  of  dates  in  works  of  such 
character  can  never  be  very  exact,  especially  when 
one  takes  into  account  the  unbroken  and  slow-chang- 
ing tradition  of  ideas  among  Eastern  peoples:  if  the 
customs  of  Syrian  peasants  in  our  own  day  throw 
light  on  the  nature  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  one  can 
hardly  look  for  much  difference  in  ways  of  thought 
between  the  days  of  Jeremiah  and  those  of  Alex- 
ander. In  view  of  such  facts,  and  also  of  the  fact 
that  much  Hebrew  authorship  consisted  in  compila- 
tion and  amplification  of  existing  materials  we  may 
fairly  suppose  that  Proverbs  gives  us  materials  which 
were  originally  produced  by  many  writers  of  very 
different  ages:  and  that  Jews  of  times  as  far  apart 
as  the  seventh  century  and  the  third  held  in  gen- 
eral about  the  same  views  of  life,  and  thought  in 
about  the  same  way. 

Thus  we  may  look  on  the  book  as  offering  us  the 
reflections  on  life  of  sages  who  lived  in  an  indefinite 
past  and  with  the  restricted  experience  of  the  Orien- 
tal world.  Yet  it  is  indubitably  stimulating  to  us 
to-day,  and  it  impresses  one  at  each  new  reading  by 


142  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  soundness  and  shrewdness  of  its  conclusions.  As 
one  turns  over  its  pages  one's  eye  catches  observa- 
tion after  observation  that  has  established  itself 
in  our  everyday  thought.  In  Bartlett's  Familiar 
Quotations  there  are  sixty-nine  quotations  from 
Proverbs^  far  more  than  from  any  other  book  in  the 
Bible  except  Psalms,  and  we  must  remember  that 
the  latter  has  become  especially  familiar  through 
its  almost  universal  use  in  church  services.  Such 
an  adhesion  to  modern  thought  attests  the  fact  that 
the  single  proverbs  are  terse  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word:  all  but  the  very  essence  of  the  thought 
is  polished  away,  and  the  phrasing  reduced  to  the 
least  possible  number  of  words.  As  one  reads  them 
one  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  gravity  and  delib- 
eration of  the  East,  where  men  have  time  to  ruminate 
on  the  meaning  of  life,  and  where  the  absence  of 
science  and  analytical  philosophy  confines  the  atten- 
tion of  wise  men  to  the  affairs  of  daily  life.  More- 
over, one  feels  the  scorn  for  the  garrulousness  of  the 
fool  in  a  region  where  rulers  are  despots  who  seize 
every  opening  for  extortion,  and  punish  ruthlessly 
every  insult  or  offense;  in  such  a  world  it  behooves 
a  man  to  think  out  his  thoughts  and  not  to  utter 
them  rashly. 

With  the  terseness  goes  the  shrewd  insight  into 
human  nature.     Here  insight  is  better  than  reason- 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  143 

ing,  since  reasoning  cannot  more  than  begin  to  state 
all  the  premises.  One's  judgment  of  men  and  affairs 
is  built  on  a  multitude  of  facts  and  feelings,  of  in- 
stincts and  prejudices  good  and  bad,  many  of  them 
so  subtle  or  so  vague  that  it  is  impossible  to  phrase 
them;  yet  they  all  go  into  the  scale  and  help  to  settle 
our  likings  and  our  acts.  It  is  the  accuracy  and 
justice  with  which  Proverbs  sums  up  these  intuitive 
judgments  that  gives  it  its  lasting  hold  on  our  in- 
terest. In  a  way  things  intellectual  are  the  super- 
ficial parts  of  humanity:  the  great  mass  of  man- 
kind has  no  share  in  them,  since  in  the  long  run 
men  are  governed  by  their  feelings  and  their  in- 
stincts and  intuitions.  It  is  this  portion  of  our 
mental  life  which  is  summed  up  so  compactly  and 
with  such  aptness  of  expression  in  this  book. 

EcclesiasteSy  though  in  subject  of  much  less  range 
than  ProverhSy  is  hardly  less  orderly:  quite  as  much 
as  the  latter  it  reads  like  a  notebook  in  which  the 
sage  set  down  his  meditations  and  observations  on 
life  as  they  happened  to  come  to  him.  Though  there 
are  some  connected  poems  in  the  book,  as  a  whole  it 
is  brought  together  with  no  more  method  than  we 
should  put  to  the  filling  of  a  scrapbook.  Indeed  one 
scholar  in  his  effort  to  compel  chaos  into  order  has 
proposed  the  theory  that  in  some  ancient  copy  of  the 
book  the  sheets  became  transposed,  so  that  the  mid- 


144  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

die  part  became  the  end  and  the  two  ends  the  middle 
part.  This  is  onlj  the  wildest  of  the  many  efforts 
to  find  a  continuous  structure  in  the  book.  All  such 
efforts  are  based  on  the  mistaken  assumption  that  a 
book  of  wisdom  would  of  necessity  have  order,  a 
necessity  which  the  Hebrew  mind  never  felt.  There 
is  no  more  striking  evidence  of  the  difference  of  the 
Hebrew  thought  from  our  own  than  this  oblivious- 
ness to  all  that  we  mean  by  the  word  "  composition." 
The  teachings  of  Ecclesiastes,  its  despairing,  cyni- 
cal acceptance  of  the  vanity  of  all  man's  endeavor, 
I  will  refer  to  presently.  Though  it  seems  to  show 
some  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  philosophy,  in  its 
mode  of  thought  it  does  not  differ  from  Proverbs. 
In  one  respect,  however,  it  is  in  contrast  to  both 
Proverbs  and  Job,  and  indeed  to  all  the  other  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  except  Nehemiah  and  the  books 
of  the  prophets:  here  we  seem  to  come  into  touch 
with  the  individuality  of  the  author,  for  he  quotes 
proverbs  and  then  adds  his  own  comment. 

The  wise  man's  eyes  are  in  his  head;  but  the  fool 
walketh  in  darkness:  and  I  myself  perceived  also 
that  one  event  happeneth  to  them  all. 

Then  said  I  in  my  heart,  as  it  happeneth  to  the 
fool,  so  it  happeneth  even  to  me;  and  why  was  I 
then  more  wise?  Then  I  said  in  my  heart,  that  this 
also  is  vanity. 

For  there  is  no  remembrance  of  the  wise  more 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  145 

than  of  the  fool  for  ever;  seeing  that  which  now  is 
in  the  days  to  come  shall  all  be  forgotten.  And 
how  dieth  the  wise  man?  as  the  fool. 

Therefore  I  hated  life;  because  the  work  that  is 
wrought  under  the  sun  is  grievous  unto  me:  for 
all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.^ 

It  is  better  to  hear  the  rebuke  of  the  wise,  than 
for  a  man  to  hear  the  song  of  fools. 

For  as  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot,  so  is 
the  laughter  of  the  fool  •  this  also  is  vanity .2 

Each  of  these  passages  begins  with  a  proverb  which 
might  have  been  found  in  either  Proverbs  or  Eccle- 
siast'icus;  but  there  it  would  have  been  merely  re- 
corded. The  author  of  Ecclesiastes,  on  the  other 
hand,  seems  to  use  the  proverb  as  the  text  or  start- 
ing point  of  his  own  thought ;  and  the  latter  is  the 
more  important.  It  is  this  habit  of  pointing  the  tra- 
ditional wisdom  of  the  sages  in  a  new  direction  that 
makes  the  work  of  the  Preacher  seem  so  individual 
and  so  modern  beside  the  impersonal  aphorisms  of 
the  shadowy  and  legendary  Solomon  to  whom  Prov- 
erbs is  ascribed. 

Job  stands  by  itself  in  the  wisdom  literature,  since, 

as   we   have   already   seen,    it   is   a   great   series   of 

poems  dealing  with  a  single  problem,  the  origin  of 

suffering  and  the  doctrine  of  retribution.     Its  solu- 

1  Eccles.  ii.  14-17.  » Ibid.,  vii.  5-6. 


146  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

tion  of  this  problem  I  will  consider  presently :  in  the 
mean  time  let  us  consider  its  outward  form.  The 
structure  of  the  book  is  of  the  loosest.  The  prose 
prologue  and  epilogue  with  which  it  begins  and  ends 
have  only  a  superficial  connection  with  the  poems: 
the  three  friends  seem  to  know  nothing  of  the 
specific  nature  of  the  sufferings  which  have  brought 
Job  to  the  dust,  or  of  the  explanation  of  his  suffer- 
ings which  is  offered  by  the  prologue.  Moreover, 
Satan,  who  is  protagonist  in  the  prologue,  is  ignored 
in  the  epilogue.  In  the  colloquies,  which  occupy 
Chapters  iii-xxvi,  the  regular  cycle  of  answers  to 
Job's  complaints  by  each  of  the  three  friends  in  turn 
is  disturbed  at  the  end:  the  last  speech  of  Bildad  is 
only  six  verses,  and  that  of  Zophar  is  omitted. 
Furthermore,  in  Chapter  xxvii,  as  we  have  seen, 
Job  shifts  his  ground  to  the  position  so  far  occupied 
by  his  friends,  and  Chapter  xxviii  consists  of  a  poem 
in  praise  of  wisdom  which  is  closely  like  that  in 
Proverbs  viii  and  which  is  in  no  way  connected  with 
the  rest  of  Job.  Then  after  Job's  bitter  description 
of  his  sufferings  in  Chapters  xxix-xxxi,  we  come  in 
Chapters  xxxii-xxxvii  to  the  speeches  of  Elihu  which 
seem  to  be  a  pious  and  less  forcible  iteration  of  the 
doctrine  already  relentlessly  enforced  by  the  three 
friends.  Moreover,  the  description  of  behemoth  and 
leviathan  in  Chapters  xl  and  xli  are  to  our  modern 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  147 

ideas  too  detailed  and  too  remote  from  the  purpose 
of  the  book  to  fall  smoothly  into  place  in  it.  Here, 
as  in  the  case  of  Ecclesiastes,  the  effort  to  reduce 
such  irregularities  to  order  must  not  tempt  us  into 
an  uncritical  ascription  to  a  past  age  of  the  world 
of  an  instinct  which  it  did  not  possess.  Even  if  the 
book  were  at  one  time  more  orderly  and  consecu- 
tive, which  is  perhaps  doubtful,  we  must  recognize 
that  the  present  disturbances  and  dislocations  would 
have  offended  no  one  in  these  simple  and  uncritical 
generations. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  in  substance  Joh 
ultimately  owes  its  origin  to  a  literal  interpretation 
of  the  doctrines  of  Deuteronomy.  The  original 
writer  of  that  book  formulated  the  teachings  of  the 
great  prophets  into  a  covenant  between  Jehovah  and 
his  people,  with  promises  of  reward  if  they  should 
obey  the  statutes  and  ordinances  which  he  set  before 
them  and  warnings  of  bitter  punishment  if  they 
should  disobey.  As  time  went  on  both  promises  and 
rewards  were  applied  to  the  individual,  and,  being 
taken  literally,  were  understood  as  of  immediate  ful- 
filment ;  or  else,  where  they  were  still  applied  to  the 
people  as  a  whole,  they  led  the  prophecy  on,  as  we 
shall  see,  into  the  apocalypse.  Applied  to  the  indi- 
vidual this  doctrine  produced  the  idea  which  is  the 
basis  of  many  of  the  psalms,  as  well  as  of  Joh,  that 


148  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

suffering  and  distress  of  necessity  imply  sin  on  the 
part  of  the  sufferer,  and  that  righteousness  is  surely 
and  immediately  rewarded  by  happiness  and  pros- 
perity. 

Fret  not  thyself  because  of  evildoers,  neither  be 
thou  envious  against  the  workers  of  iniquity. 

For  they  shall  soon  be  cut  down  like  the  grass, 
and  wither  as  the  green  herb. 

Trust  in  the  Lord,  and  do  good;  so  shalt  thou 
dwell  in  the  land,  and  verily  thou  shalt  be  fed. 

Delight  thyself  also  in  the  Lord;  and  he  shall 
give  thee  the  desires  of  thine  heart.^ 

It  is  this  doctrine  that  Jesus  controverts  in  the  pas- 
sage in  8t  Luke  concerning  "  the  Galileans,  whose 
blood  Pilate  had  mingled  with  their  sacrifices,"  and 
the  "  eighteen,  upon  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam  fell 
and  slew  them."  ^  It  seems  to  have  been  a  cardinal 
doctrine  in  the  thought  of  the  Jews  in  the  last  cen- 
turies of  the  old  era. 

The  relation  of  Joh  to  this  doctrine  is  illuminating 
as  to  its  character.  The  school  of  wise  men  or  sages 
from  which  it  is  probable  that  all  the  wisdom  books 
proceeded  seems  to  have  set  itself  to  scrutinize  the 
world  in  a  temper  approaching  what  we  should  call 
the  scientific.  It  looked  at  facts  in  a  cool  and  dis- 
passionate way  which  is  in  strong  contrast  to  the 
*  Ps.  xxxvii.  1-4.  '  Luke  xiii.  1-5. 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  149 

intensity  and  heated  imagination  of  the  prophets ;  ^ 
and  looking  thus  at  the  facts  of  their  time,  these 
sages  could  not  help  seeing  the  contradiction  between 
this  traditional  doctrine  and  the  facts  which  faced 
them.  Thev,  who  were  the  chosen  people  of  Jeho- 
vah, whose  persistence  as  a  people  was  now  deter- 
mined wholly  by  their  faithfulness  to  his  law,  were 
the  prey  of  heathen  conquerors,  and  subject  to  such 
scorn  and  oppression  as  is  so  vividly  described  by 
iN'ehemiah.  Job  shows  us  one  of  the  ways  in  which 
these  sages  met  this  crucial  dilemma. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  author  discusses 
the  problem  in  a  series  of  poems,  and  that  these 
poems  show  hardly  any  progress.  Eliphaz  and  Bil- 
dad  and  Zophar  start  from  the  same  point  in  each  of 
the  three  cycles  of  speeches,  and  Job  in  his  replies 
meets  them  always  in  almost  the  same  way:  they 
assume  that  since  he  is  suffering,  therefore  he  has 
sinned;  he  protests  that  he  has  not  sinned,  and  sets 
forth  his  helplessness  in  the  hands  of  Jehovah. 
Only  in  Chapter  xxi  does  he  come  to  the  point  of 
questioning  this  universal  doctrine  of  his  race,  and 
then  with  horror  at  his  own  presumption: 

Mark  me,  and  be  astonished,  and  lay  your  hand 
upon  your  mouth. 

Even  when  I  remember  I  am  afraid,  and  trem- 
bling taketh  hold  on  my  flesh. 


150  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Wherefore  do  the  wicked  live,  become  old,  yea, 
are  mighty  in  power? 

One  dieth  in  his  full  strength,  being  wholly  at 
ease  and  quiet. 

His  breasts  are  full  of  milk,  and  his  bones  are 
moistened  with  marrow. 

And  another  dieth  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul, 
and  never  eateth  with  pleasure. 

They  shall  lie  down  alike  in  the  dust,  and  the 
worms  shall  cover  them. 

How  then  comfort  ye  me  in  vain,  seeing  in  your 
answers  there  remaineth  falsehood?  ^ 

The  final  solution  of  the  problem  in  the  answer  of 
the  Lord  from  the  whirlwind  in  Chapter  xxxviii  is 
merely  a  declaration  of  the  impotence  of  man: 

Who  is  this  that  darkeneth  counsel  by  words 
without  knowledge? 

Gird  up  now  thy  loins  like  a  man;  for  I  will  de- 
mand of  thee,  and  answer  thou  me. 

Where  wast  thou  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  earth?  declare,  if  thou  hast  understanding. 

Hast  thou  entered  into  the  springs  of  the  sea? 
or  hast  thou  walked  in  the  search  of  the  depth? 

Have  the  gates  of  death  been  opened  unto  thee? 
or  hast  thou  seen  the  doors  of  the  shadow  of  death? 

Hast  thou  perceived  the  breath  of  the  earth?  de- 
clare if  thou  knowest  it  all.^ 
»  Job  xxi.  5-7;  23-26;  34.  '  Ibid.,  xxxviii.  2-4;  16-18. 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  151 

And  Job,  overwhelmed  and  in  the  dust,  declares: 

Who  is  he  that  hideth  counsel  without  knowl- 
edge? therefore  have  I  uttered  that  I  understood 
not;  things  too  wonderful  for  me,  which  I  knew  not. 

Hear,  I  beseech  thee,  and  I  will  speak:  I  -vvdll 
demand  of  thee,  and  declare  thou  unto  me. 

I  have  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear: 
but  now  mine  eye  seeth  thee. 

Wherefore  I  abhor  myself,  and  repent  in  dust 
and  ashes.^ 


This  is  the  final  word  of  Job:  the  acknowledgment 
that  the  ways  of  God  are  past  man's  understanding ; 
and  that  the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  wisdom. 

Judged  by  the  canons  of  strict  logic  or  of  our 
modern  conception  of  God  as  supremely  just,  this 
treatment  of  the  problem  is  incoherent  and  inconse- 
quent. We  must  not  lose  sight,  however,  of  the  fact 
that  we  are  dealing  with  the  Oriental  world.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  that  "  the  doctrine  of  retribution 
in  the  present  life  which  [the  author  of  /o6]  finds 
inadequate  is  common  to  the  friends  and  to  the  relig- 
ion which  has  in  all  ages  been  that  of  the  genuine 
Arab — the  so-called  din  Ibrahim  (or  '  religion  of 
Abraham  ').  The  Eloah  and  Shaddai  of  Job  are  the 
irresponsible  Allah  who  has  all  power  in  heaven  and 
» Job  xlii.  3-6. 


152  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

on  earth,  and  before  whom,  when  mysteries  occur  in 
human  life  which  the  retribution-doctrine  cannot 
solve,  the  Arab  and  every  true  Moslem  bows  his  head 
with  settled,  sad  resignation/'  ^  This  conception  of 
God  as  an  inscrutable,  omnipotent  Being  who  justi- 
fies His  actions  to  no  man,  before  whom  mankind  is 
as  the  dust  of  the  earth,  is  chiefly  familiar  to  us  to- 
day through  Fitzgerald's  rendering  of  the  Ruhdiydt 
of  Omar  Khayyam: 

We  are  no  other  than  a  moving  row 

Of  Magic  Shadow-shapes  that  come  and  go 

Round  with  the  Sun-illumin'd  lantern  held 
In  Midnight  by  the  Master  of  the  Show; 

But  helpless  Pieces  of  the  Game  He  plays 
Upon  this  Chequer-board  of  Nights  and  Days; 
Hither  and  thither  moves,  and  checks,  and 
slays. 
And  one  by  one  back  in  the  Closet  lays. 

The  Ball  no  question  makes  of  Ayes  and  Noes, 
But  Here  or  There  as  strikes  the  Player  goes; 
And  He  that  toss'd  you  down  into  the  Field, 
He  knows  about  it  all — he  knows — HE  knows. 

This  is  not  far  from  the  doctrine  of  Ecclesiastes ;  but 

in  Job  God  is  assumed  to  act  through  love  of  his 

people;   he  is  not  wholly  irresponsible.     The  book 

*  Cheyne,  Job  and  Solomon,  p.  98 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  153 

breathes  the  settled  conviction  that  God  has  chosen 
his  people  Israel  and  that  he  has  a  special  care  over 
them.  Moreover^  the  author  is  not,  as  he  has  some- 
times been  held,  a  sceptic.  Though  Job  cries  out 
against  the  injustice  of  his  sufferings  and  breaks 
through  the  settled  tradition  of  his  people  by  declar- 
ing that  the  righteous  do  suffer  and  the  wicked  do 
prosper,  yet  underneath  he  has  always  the  faith  in 
God :  the  cry  "  though  he  slay  me  yet  will  I  trust 
him  "  is  a  necessary  element  in  any  just  understand- 
ing of  the  book.  Its  force  lies  in  its  capacity  to 
bring  home  even  to  us  to-day  the  pressing  and  cru- 
cial nature  of  the  problem,  and  to  make  us  feel  the 
puny  and  ephemeral  weakness  of  mankind  before  the 
eternal  purposes  of  God.  There  is  no  other  work 
in  English  literature  which  approaches  this  power  of 
Joh  to  hold  us  face  to  face  with  the  overwhelm- 
ing forces  of  nature^  and  to  marshal  them  into  a 
means  of  setting  forth  deep  and  ideal  truths.  Its  ap- 
peal is  to  the  highest  emotions  of  which  man  is  ca- 
pable ;  and,  except  perhaps  for  the  Elihu  speeches,  it 
maintains  itself  without  flagging  at  this  high  pitch 
of  feeling. 

Ecclesiastes  struggles  with  the  same  problem,  and 
comes  in  a  way  to  the  same  conclusion,  but  in  so  dif- 
ferent a  spirit  that  the  similarity  is  only  superficial. 
In  spite  of  the  fragmentariness  and  disarray  of  the 


154  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

book  it  strikes  a  single  note,  the  futility  of  all  man's 
struggles  to  understand  and  justify  the  universe. 

I  said  in  mine  heart  concerning  the  estate  of 
the  sons  of  men,  that  God  might  manifest  them, 
and  that  they  might  see  that  they  themselves 
are  beasts. 

For  that  which  befalleth  the  sons  of  men  be- 
falleth  beasts;  even  one  thing  befalleth  them:  as 
the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other;  yea,  they  have 
all  one  breath ;  so  that  a  man  hath  no  preeminence 
above  a  beast:  for  all  is  vanity. 

All  go  unto  one  place;  all  are  of  the  dust,  and 
all  turn  to  dust  again. 

Who  knoweth  the  spirit  of  man  that  goeth 
upward,  and  the  spirit  of  the  beast  that  goeth 
downward  to  the  earth? 

Wherefore  I  perceive  that  there  is  nothing  better, 
than  that  a  man  should  rejoice  in  his  own  works; 
for  that  is  his  portion:  for  who  shall  bring  him  to 
see  what  shall  be  after  him?  ^ 

Truly  the  light  is  sweet,  and  a  pleasant  thing  it 
is  for  the  eyes  to  behold  the  sun: 

But  if  a  man  live  many  years,  and  rejoice  in 
them  all;  yet  let  him  remember  the  days  of  dark- 
ness; for  they  shall  be  many.  All  that  cometh  is 
vanity  .2 

This  mood  is  familiar  to  all  men  at  one  time  or 

another,    and    it   is   the   prevailing   mood   with   the 

weaker  brother;   the  weariness   of  the  flesh   easily 

1  Eccles.  iii.  18-22.  2  i^id.,  xi.  7-8. 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  155 

passes  over  into  weariness  of  spirit ;  and  at  such 
times  the  conventions  and  the  apparent  universality 
of  Ecclesiastes  sweep  over  the  field  of  thought  like 
the  face  of  night  over  a  troubled  country.  The  sim- 
plicity and  conclusiveness  of  the  solution  are  sooth- 
ing; the  Preacher  is  easier  to  follow  than  is  Job, 
for  even  intellectually  idealism  and  optimism  are 
harder  doctrines  to  cling  to  and  need  a  robuster  frame 
of  mind.  The  shady  side  of  experience  is  the  more 
obvious,  since  we  take  the  good  of  life  as  our  right 
and  without  notice,  whereas  its  disappointments 
come  to  us  as  a  personal  grievance.  It  is  far  easier 
to  hold  that  things  are  going  to  the  dogs  than  to  ex- 
tend one's  view  over  a  long  enough  stretch  of  time 
to  see  that  they  are  improving.  Moreover,  all  the  de- 
lights of  the  world,  even  innocent  indulgence  in  the 
pleasures  of  the  flesh,  pull  one  away  from  the  higher 
view;  the  only  possible  philosophy  for  the  man  who 
chooses  the  things  of  this  life  and  turns  his  back  on 
the  things  of  the  spirit  is  an  irresponsible  agnosti- 
cism; for  such  men  Ecclesiastes  is  the  whole  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets. 

This  mood  of  almost  luxurious  hopelessness  marks 
the  great  gap  between  Ecclesiastes  and  Job.  Out  of 
the  depths  of  suffering  and  mental  torture  the  latter 
still  raises  a  voice  of  praise  and  acknowledgment  to 
the  Almighty.     The  author  of  Ecclesiastes  lies  down 


156  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

before  his  difficulties,  and  draws  over  his  eyes  the 
veil  of  present  creature  comforts. 


II 


'Now  turning  to  look  at  all  these  books  of  wisdom 
as  a  class  of  literature,  the  first  fact  that  I  wish  to 
emphasize  is  that  they  are  poetical  in  form.  From 
that  fact  it  follows  as  a  corollary  that  they  are  com- 
posed of  the  simplest  kinds  of  sentences;  for  we 
have  seen  that  in  Hebrew  poetry,  since  the  line  is  the 
unit  and  the  lines  must  be  strictly  balanced,  there 
can  be  no  sustained  periods.  In  the  second  place,  as 
I  pointed  out  at  some  length  in  the  last  chapter,  the 
vocabulary  of  Hebrew  is  uniformly  concrete,  and 
that  to  a  degree  which  it  would  be  impossible  to  match 
in  modern  books,  even  in  those  on  the  simplest  sub- 
jects. A  page  of  Bunyan's  Pilgrims  Progress  has 
more  abstract  words  than  the  whole  of  Job.  Besides 
this  simplicity  of  structure  and  this  unfailing  con- 
creteness  of  diction,  which  follow  from  the  nature  of 
Hebrew  poetry,  there  are  in  these  books  no  con- 
nectives or  other  devices  for  building  the  discourses 
together  into  sustained  and  continuous  thought. 
Proverbs  is  a  collection  of  diverse  material  with  no 
attempt  to  bind  the  parts  together.  In  Job^  Satan, 
who  is  the  protagonist  of  the  prologue,  does  not  ap- 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  157 

pear  in  the  poems,  nor  in  the  epilogue ;  nor  do  the 
poems  refer  to  the  specific  gTief s  and  trials  of  the  flesh 
from  which  Job  suffers  in  the  story.  Even  in  the 
poems,  the  joining  of  issue  between  Job  and  his  com- 
forters is  very  uncertain:  and  in  Chapter  xxvii  he 
shifts  over  to  their  side  of  the  argument.  The  answer 
of  the  Lord  from  the  whirlwind  loses  itself  in  the 
descriptions  of  behemoth  and  of  leviathan ;  and  it  is 
nowhere  summed  up  to  a  specific  conclusion.  Thus 
Job  is  a  discussion  of  a  metaphysical  question  in 
which  there  are  no  abstract  words,  no  logical  struct- 
ure, and  not  even  an  attempt  at  an  unbroken  chain  of 
reasoning.  If  one  tries  to  imagine  writing  today 
on  even  the  simplest  subject  in  science  or  philosophy 
without  such  necessities  of  style  one  will  see  how 
far  away  from  us  is  this  poetical  wisdom  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Even  Ecclesiastes,  which  reflects  an  ac- 
quaintance with  Greek  philosophy,  constantly  falls 
back  into  the  poetical  aphorisms  of  the  Hebrew 
wisdom : 

Again,  I  considered  all  travail,  and  every  right 
work,  that  for  this  a  man  is  envied  of  his  neighbour. 
This  is  also  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 

The  fool  foldeth  his  hands  together,  and  eateth 
his  own  flesh. 

Better  is  an  handful  with  quietness,  than  both 
the  hands  full  with  travail  and  vexation  of  spirit. ^ 
^  Eccles.  iv.  4-6. 


158  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

In  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word  these  Hebrew  books 
of  wisdom  are  literature,  for  they  are  always  poeti- 
cal and  therefore  concerned  more  with  feeling  than 
with  thought. 

Furthermore,  when  one  compares  the  contents  of 
these  Hebrew  books  of  wisdom  with  those  of  our 
modern  philosophy  and  science  one  very  soon  notices 
that  those  contents  were  drawn  always  and  wholly 
from  experience,  never  from  inference  and  specula- 
tion. These  books  are  concerned  with  such  things 
as  the  hatred  that  stirs  up  strife,  pride,  the  light  of 
the  righteous,  the  fountains  of  the  deep,  the  doors 
of  the  shadow  of  death.  It  is  such  wisdom  as  might 
have  been  gathered  by  a  sage  sitting  at  the  gateway 
of  a  town,  shrewdly  observing  and  ruminating  on  the 
affairs  of  the  men  who  pass  him,  but  never  pushing 
his  thought  beyond  such  matters  of  immediate  ob- 
servation. It  is  the  wisdom  of  the  market  place  and 
the  highway  rather  than  the  wisdom  of  the  study. 

So  completely  is  this  true  that  this  homely  and 
concrete  wisdom  of  the  Jewish  sages  would  not  make 
even  a  starting  point  for  our  science  and  philosophy. 
The  latter  go  to  sensation  and  experience  only  for 
confirmation  of  results  already  reached  by  abstrac- 
tion. Astronomy,  abstracting  from  its  direct  ob- 
servations of  the  heavenly  bodies  their  motions  in 
relation  to  each  other,  and  making  great  leaps  by  in- 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  159 

ference,  arrived  at  the  law  of  universal  gravitation. 
Then  by  means  of  pure  calculation  based  on  observed 
deviations  of  Uranus  it  pointed  its  telescopes  to  the 
exact  place  where  the  faint  light  of  Neptune  would 
strike  the  eye.  So  in  practical  matters.  A  civil  engi- 
neer plans  a  bridge  without  knowing  who  will  manu- 
facture the  steel  or  who  will  put  it  together.  He 
works  out  in  the  quiet  of  his  office  abstractions  which 
give  him  mastery  over  the  inert  matter  and  forces 
of  nature ;  and  without  the  abstraction  and  inference 
he  would  be  helpless.  Moreover,  science  uses  these 
abstractions  as  ultimate  and  absolute  facts,  with  the 
same  confidence  that  the  Eastern  sage  had  in  his 
shrewd  observations  in  the  market  place.  The  force 
of  gravity,  electricity,  evolution  and  adaptation 
to  environment,  are  all  figments  of  inference  which 
we  know  only  by  putting  together  attributes  or  ef- 
fects abstracted  from  a  host  of  concrete  inferences  of 
the  most  diverse  kind.  Our  forms  of  language  dif- 
fer from  those  of  the  Hebrew  sages  chiefly  from  the 
necessary  consequences  of  this  difference  of  thought. 
We  reason  by  analysis  and  abstraction,  and  they  did 
not.  Therefore  our  language  has  abstract  words  and 
a  full  and  increasing  apparatus  for  transitions  and 
for  summarizing  great  reaches  of  thought:  theirs 
had  none. 

This  difference  in  mental  constitution  goes  so  deep 


160  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

to  the  essence  of  this  Biblical  literature  that  I  will 
venture  to  examine  it  somewhat  more  deeply.  Let 
us  to  turn  to  psychology  and  see  how  the  process  of 
reasoning  is  understood  today.  Professor  James  in 
the  chapter  on  Reasoning  in  his  Psychology  sums  up 
its  essence  in  these  words :  "  The  great  difference,  in 
fact,  between  that  simpler  kind  of  rational  thinking 
which  consists  in  the  concrete  objects  of  past  experi- 
ence merely  suggesting  each  other,  and  reasoning 
distinctively  so  called,  is  this,  that  whilst  the  empiri- 
cal thinking  is  only  reproductive,  reasoning  is  pro- 
ductive. An  empirical,  or  '  rule-of -thumb  '  thinker 
can  deduce  nothing  from  data  with  whose  behavior 
and  associates  in  the  concrete  he  is  unfamiliar.''  .  .  . 
Reasoning  "  contains  analysis  and  abstraction. 
Whereas  the  merely  empirical  thinker  stares  at  a  fact 
in  its  entirety,  .  .  .  the  reasoner  breaks  it  up  and  no- 
tices some  one  of  its  separate  attributes.  This  attri- 
bute he  takes  to  be  the  essential  part  of  the  whole  fact 
before  him.  This  attribute  has  properties  or  conse- 
quences which  the  fact  until  then  was  not  known  to 
have,  but  which  now  it  is  noticed  to  contain  the  at- 
tribute it  must  have."  .  .  .  And  further  on,  "  The 
first  thing  is  to  have  seen  that  every  possible  case 
of  reasoning  involves  the  abstraction  of  a  particular 
partial  aspect  of  the  phenomena  thought  about,  and 
that    whilst    Empirical    Thought    simply    associates 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  161 

phenomena  in  their  entirety,  Reasoned  Thought 
couples  them  by  the  conscious  use  of  this  extract."  ^ 

Socrates,  who  was  possibly  a  contemporary  of  the 
author  of  Job,  gives  in  the  Republic  in  his  search  for 
the  nature  of  justice  an  admirable  example  of  this 
process  of  reasoning  by  abstraction.  "  First,"  he 
suggested,  ^'  let  us  investigate  its  character  in  cities ; 
afterwards  let  us  apply  the  same  inquiry  to  the  in- 
dividual, looking  for  a  counterpart  of  the  greater  as 
it  exists  in  the  form  of  the  less."  In  other  words, 
he  proposed  to  break  up  the  concrete  cases  in  which 
justice  and  injustice  appear,  in  order  to  separate  out 
or  ^'  extract "  the  single  attribute  of  justice  or  in- 
justice. The  individual  and  concrete  case  was  of  no 
interest  to  him  once  it  had  yielded  up  the  attribute 
which  he  was  trying  to  abstract  from  it.  This  analy- 
sis which  makes  possible  the  extraction  of  a  single 
attribute  is  the  engine  by  which  our  philosophy  and 
science  have  made  all  their  gains. 

In  the  books  of  Hebrew  wisdom  there  is  no  case  of 
reasoning  analogous  to  this  discussion  between  Socra- 
tes and  his  friends.  The  Hebrew  mind  proceeded  en- 
tirely by  empirical  processes.  In  such  passages  as, 
"  A  wise  man  feareth  and  departeth  from  evil ;  but 
the  fool  rageth  and  is  confident,"  or  "  A  soft  answer 
turneth  away  wrath ;  but  grievous  words  stir  up  an- 
*  William  James,  Psychology,  II,  329  ss. 


162  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

ger/'  or  ^'  A  wicked  man  travaileth  with  pain  all  the 
days  of  his  life," — in  all  such  assertions,  each  case 
is  seen  only  in  its  entirety:  it  is  not  broken  up  by 
analysis  in  order  that  a  single  attribute, — of  folly,  of 
conciliation,  of  wickedness, — ^may  be  picked  out  and 
followed  to  its  consequences.  In  these  books  of  wis- 
dom there  is  no  trace  of  that  patient  comparison  and 
analysis  of  the  separate  concrete  cases  which  are  the 
substance  of  direct  experience,  none  of  the  sagacious 
and  deliberate  stripping  away  of  the  unlike  attributes 
and  qualities  in  order  to  reach  a  clear  perception  and 
definition  of  the  single  quality  or  attribute  of  folly 
or  prudence  or  wisdom.  In  Proverbs  the  fool  is 
characterized  by  a  number  of  Hebrew  words:  the 
most  common  is  that  which  describes  him  as  dense 
and  headstrong;  another  conveys  the  idea  of  his  de- 
generateness  and  corruptness,  another  that  he  is 
merely  a  simpleton.  The  words  seem  to  be  used  as 
synonyms ;  but  there  is  never  an  attempt  to  compare 
them,  and  by  analysing  typical  cases  under  each  to 
define  the  common  attribute  which  makes  us  think 
and  speak  of  such  different  varieties  of  fools  all  un- 
der the  same  general  term.  The  like  cases  are 
grouped  together  empirically  and  with  such  shrewd- 
ness that  the  empirical  conclusions  are  as  true  to-day 
as  when  they  were  written,  two  thousand  years  ago; 
but  neither  here  nor  elsewhere  in  the  Old  Testament 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  163 

is  there  any  case  of  the  further  step  which  would 
make  reasoning  possible.  We  pass  into  a  wholly 
new  realm  of  intellectual  life,  I  am  tempted  to  say 
into  a  new  stage  of  the  evolution  of  man,  when  we 
pass  from  the  Old  Testament  wisdom  to  the  debates  of 
Socrates  and  his  friends  and  the  intellectual  life  of 
the  modern  world. 

An  immediate  result  of  this  lack  of  the  reasoning 
faculty  appears  in  the  absence  from  these  books  of  all 
ideas  about  the  universe  and  of  all  secondary  causes. 
To  their  thought  every  fact  and  every  action  in  the 
universe  proceeded  direct  from  God:  In  Job  such 
diverse  things  as  these  are  brought  together : 

Canst  thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades, 
or  loose  the  bands  of  Orion? 

Canst  thou  bring  forth  Mazzaroth  in  his  season? 
or  canst  thou  guide  Arc  turns  with  his  sons? 

Knowest  thou  the  ordinances  of  heaven?  canst 
thou  set  the  dominion  thereof  in  the  earth? 

Canst  thou  send  lightnings,  that  they  may  go, 
and  say  unto  thee,  Here  we  are? 

Wilt  thou  hunt  the  prey  for  the  Hon?  or  fill  the 
appetite  of  the  young  lions, 

When  they  couch  in  their  dens,  and  abide  in  the 
covert  to  lie  in  wait? 

Who  provideth  for  the  raven  his  food?  when  his 
young  ones  cry  unto  God,  they  wander  for  lack  of 
meat.^ 

*  Job  xxxviii.  31-33,  35,  39-41. 


164  THE  BIBLE   AS   LITERATURE 

For  the  Hebrew  thought,  all  things,  small  and  great, 
rested  immediately  on  the  providence  of  God.  Our 
modern  thought  has  built  up  between  the  power  of  the 
Almighty  and  the  phenomena  so  splendidly  described 
in  the  later  chapters  of  Job  a  structure  of  general 
laws  and  theories,  such  as  the  nebular  hypothesis  and 
the  law  of  adaptation  to  environment,  by  which,  as 
we  say,  we  explain  the  phenomena.  The  Hebrew 
sage  felt  no  need  of  such  explanation,  for  he  had  no 
faculty  for  reasoning  by  which  he  could  construct 
such  secondary  causes.  We  rest  our  universe  on  this 
structure  of  natural  laws,  just  as  the  Indian  cosmog- 
ony made  the  world  rest  on  an  elephant,  which  stood 
on  a  turtle :  and  just  as  this  turtle  was  left  standing 
on  space,  so  in  the  end  do  our  systems  and  natural 
laws  leave  the  universe  unexplained.  The  simpler 
thought  of  the  Hebrew  accepted  the  inscrutability  of 
life  in  the  first  instance :  for  them  the  universe  lay 
directly  in  the  hand  of  the  omnipotent  God  who  had 
created  it. 

l^ow  this  absence  of  abstract  reasoning  had  a  de- 
termining effect  on  the  character  of  all  the  Hebrew 
literature :  and  joined  to  the  uniform  concreteness  of 
the  language  it  explains  the  fact  that  the  Hebrew 
wisdom  was  never  free  from  emotional  elements.  In 
a  language  in  which  the  words,  as  we  saw  in  the  last 
chapter,   always  carried  the  suggestion  of  physical 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  165 

sensation,  the  thought  for  which  they  were  symbols 
could  never  have  attained  those  clear  and  colorless 
reaches  of  mental  life  where  emotion  and  personal 
affection  give  way  to  impersonal  and  abstract  gen- 
eralizations. Tied  to  such  a  language  the  Hebrew 
wisdom  could  never  have  disentangled  itself  from 
emotion.  Our  learning  makes  no  real  step  imtil  it 
has  reached  objects  of  thought  which  are  unperturbed 
by  feeling:  for  them  such  objects  had  no  existence. 
Whether  it  be  in  the  proverb,  ^'  A  merry  heart  doeth 
good  like  a  medicine,  but  a  broken  spirit  drieth  the 
bones,"  or  in  the  passionate  outcry  of  Job,  ^'  They 
shall  lie  down  alike  in  the  dust,  and  the  worms  shall 
cover  them  " — their  wisdom  was  always  a  wisdom 
that  touched  the  personal  life  and  therefore  involved 
the  feelings. 

This  essentially  emotional  character  of  the  He- 
brew wisdom  is  further  heightened  by  the  poetical 
form  of  all  the  wisdom  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 
For  poetry,  rising  to  a  more  heightened  and  figura- 
tive diction  than  prose,  utters  forth  directly  the  po- 
tent feelings  and  intuitions  which  are  the  deepest 
springs  of  our  thought  and  action.  Still  further,  by 
means  of  its  heightened  and  regular  rhythm  it  can 
body  forth  some  of  those  indefinable  feelings  which 
lie  beyond  the  power  of  words  in  the  realm  of  music. 
Poetry  is  thus  of  necessity  more  richly  clothed  with 


166  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

feeling  than  is  prose:  indeed,  poetry  without  feel- 
ing and  emotion  is  inconceivable.  This  poetical  form 
of  the  Hebrew  wisdom  therefore  still  further  empha- 
sizes its  difference  from  our  science  and  philosophy. 
In  a  wisdom  which  because  of  its  very  form  must  be 
shot  through  and  through  with  elements  of  sense  and 
emotion  there  is  little  application  for  Bacon's  favor- 
ite apothegm,  "  Dry  light  is  ever  the  best " ;  it  could 
never  contemplate  the  facts  of  experience  solely  in 
the  colorless  light  of  the  intellect ;  and  having  no  ab- 
stract reasoning  its  literature  could  have  neither  sci- 
ence nor  philosophy  nor  theology. 

The  best  summary  that  I  know  of  the  habit  of 
mind  which  lies  behind  these  books  of  wisdom  is  con- 
tained in  a  letter  of  a  Turkish  Cadi  to  a  friend  of 
Layard,  the  explorer  of  J^ineveh. 

My  illustrious  Friend,  and  Joy  of  my  Liver! 

The  thing  you  ask  of  me  is  both  difficult  and  use- 
less !  Although  I  have  passed  all  my  days  in  this 
place,  I  have  neither  counted  the  houses  nor  have  I 
inquired  into  the  number  of  the  inhabitants ;  and  as 
to  what  one  person  loads  on  his  mules  and  the  other 
stows  away  in  the  bottom  of  his  ship,  that  is  no 
business  of  mine.  But,  above  all,  as  to  the  previous 
history  of  this  city,  God  only  knows  the  amount  of 
dirt  and  confusion  that  the  infidels  may  have  eaten 
before  the  coming  of  the  sword  of  Islam.  It  were 
unprofitable  for  us  to  inquire  into  it. 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS]  167 

O  my  soul!  O  my  lamb!  seek  not  after  things 
which  concern  thee  not.  Thou  camest  unto  us 
and  we  welcomed  thee:  go  in  peace. 

Of  a  truth  thou  hast  spoken  many  words;  and 
there  is  no  harm  done,  for  the  speaker  is  one  and 
the  listener  is  another.  After  the  fashion  of  thy 
people  thou  hast  wandered  from  one  place  to 
another,  until  thou  art  happy  and  content  in  none. 
We  (praise  be  to  God)  were  born  here,  and  never 
desire  to  quit  it.  Is  it  possible,  then,  that  the  idea 
of  a  general  intercourse  between  mankind  should 
make  any  impression  on  our  understandings?  God 
forbid ! 

Listen,  O  my  son!  There  is  no  wisdom  equal 
unto  the  belief  in  God!  He  created  the  world, 
and  shall  we  liken  ourselves  unto  him  in  seeking 
to  penetrate  into  the  mysteries  of  his  creation? 
Shall  we  say,  behold  this  star  spinneth  round  that 
star,  and  this  other  star  with  a  tail  goeth  and 
Cometh  in  so  many  years!  Let  it  go!  He  from 
whose  hand  it  came  will  guide  and  direct  it. 

But  thou  wilt  say  unto  me.  Stand  aside,  0  man, 
for  I  am  more  learned  than  thou  art,  and  have  seen 
more  things.  If  thou  thinkest  that  thou  art  better 
in  this  respect  than  I  am,  thou  art  welcome.  I 
praise  God,  I  seek  not  that  which  I  require  not. 
Thou  art  learned  in  the  things  I  care  not  for:  and 
as  for  that  which  thou  hast  seen  I  defile  it.  Will 
much  knowledge  create  thee  a  double  belly,  or  wilt 
thou  seek  Paradise  with  thine  eyes? 

O  my  friend!  if  thou  wilt  be  happy,  say.  There 


168  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

is  no  God  but  God!  Do  no  evil,  and  thus  wilt  thou 
fear  neither  man  nor  death;  for  surely  thine  hour 
will  come! 

The  meek  in  spirit  (El  Fakir), 
Imaum  Ali  Zade^ 

This  is  merely  a  modern  rendering  of  the  conclusion 
of  Ecclesiastes : 

When  I  applied  mine  heart  to  know  wisdom, 
and  to  see  the  business  that  is  done  upon  the  earth : 
(for  also  there  is  that  neither  day  nor  night  seeth 
sleep  with  his  eyes:) 

Then  I  beheld  all  the  work  of  God,  that  a  man 
cannot  find  out  the  work  that  is  done  under  the 
sun:  because  though  a  man  labour  to  seek  it  out, 
yet  he  shall  not  find  it;  yea  farther;  though  a  wise 
man  think  to  know  it,  yet  shall  he  not  be  able  to 
find  it.2 

For  the  modern  Oriental  as  for  the  ancient  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  of  wisdom  is  the  fear  of  God. 

Yet  one  must  not  forget  the  other  aspect  of  this 
literature  we  are  studying,  that  these  books  have 
maintained  their  hold  on  men  of  all  degrees  of  educa- 
tion through  more  than  two  thousand  years,  and  that 
they  have  stood  the  test  of  translation  into  languages 
of   totally   different  genius   and   structure — perhaps 

*  A.  H.  Layard,  Discoveries  in  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  N.  Y.,  1853, 
p.  663. 

2  Eccles.  viii.  16-17. 


THE  WISDOM  BOOKS  169 

the  most  striking  case  of  persistence  in  all  the  history 
of  literature.  Assuming,  as  always,  the  fact  of  in- 
spiration, we  may  wonder  how  any  medium  of  ex- 
pression can  be  capable  of  conveying  the  same  ideas 
to  men  of  such  different  ages  and  stages  of  culture. 
The  seeming  paradox  of  the  permanence  of  such 
works  as  these  books  of  Hebrew  wisdom  may  remind 
us  that,  after  all,  the  power  of  abstract  reasoning  is 
only  a  small  part  of  the  faculties  of  our  minds.  To 
quote  Professor  James  again :  ^^  Over  immense  de- 
partments of  our  thought  we  are  still,  all  of  us,  in 
the  savage  state.  Similarity  operates  in  us,  but  ab- 
straction has  not  taken  place.  We  know  what  the 
present  case  is  like,  we  know  what  it  reminds  us  of, 
we  have  an  intuition  of  the  right  course  to  take,  if 
it  be  a  practical  matter.  But  analytic  thought  has 
made  no  tracks,  and  we  cannot  justify  ourselves  to 
others.  In  ethical,  psychological,  and  aesthetic  mat- 
ters, to  give  a  clear  reason  for  one's  judgment  is 
universally  recognized  as  a  mark  of  rare  genius."  ^ 
In  other  words,  underneath  the  purely  intellectual 
faculties  on  which  we  moderns  plume  ourselves 
there  lies  the  far  greater  and  richer  mass  of  our 
emotional  and  instinctive  faculties.  Even  in  the 
most  highly  civilized  races  instinct  and  emotion  con- 
stitute all  the  deeper  parts  of  the  mental  life ;  and  it 
*  James,  Psychology,  II,  365. 


170  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

is  in  this  larger  and  fuller  realm  of  consciousness 
that  the  Hebrew  wisdom  has  its  roots.  Bj  putting 
its  thoughts  in  concrete  words,  which  name  always 
palpable  things,  and  by  clothing  its  words  with  poet- 
ical form,  it  gained  the  same  permanence  of  mean- 
ing that  the  sensations  and  emotions  themselves  have, 
and  will  have  until  many  ages  have  evolved  man  into 
an  animal  very  different  from  us.  The  permanent 
place  of  these  books  in  our  literature  would  be  proof 
enough,  if  proof  were  needed,  that  intuition  without 
reasoning  reaches  deeper  and  more  permanent  truths 
than  does  reasoning  alone,  and  of  the  further  truth 
that  if  such  deep  and  permanent  truths  are  to  be  bod- 
ied forth  in  any  language  it  must  be  concrete  in  its 
terms  and  endowed  first  of  all  with  the  power  of 
expressing  emotion.  We  read  these  books  with  the 
constant  sense  of  the  justness  with  which  they  sum 
up  experience  even  for  us  to-day;  but  they  do  not 
even  tend  to  inosculate  with  our  modern  efforts  to 
unravel  the  mysteries  of  the  universe.  They  trust 
wholly  to  intuition,  and  through  this  trust  arrive  at 
glimpses  of  the  verities  which  lie  behind  the  mask  of 
experience. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    EPISTLES   OF   THE    NEW    TESTAMENT 


If  one,  after  reading  in  the  Old  Testament,  passes 
on  directly  into  the  first  three  gospels  one  finds  al- 
most no  change  of  literary  atmosphere :  in  their  mode 
of  thought  and  of  expression  they  belong  to  the  Ori- 
ental world.  The  narrative,  as  we  have  seen,  has  al- 
most the  same  conereteness  of  vocabulary  and  simplic- 
ity of  sentence  structure;  and  the  apparatus  of  con- 
nectives between  the  parts  is  almost  as  limited.  Even 
the  literary  form  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  is  closely 
like  that  of  kindred  forms  in  the  Old  Testament. 
If  we  make  a  rough  classification  of  these  teachings 
into  aphorisms,  practical  injunctions,  prophetic  say- 
ings, and  parables  we  shall  find  each  of  these  four 
forms  paralleled  in  the  Old  Testament.  For  the 
aphorisms  compare  a  passage  from  St.  Matthew^ 

No  man  can  serve  two  masters:  for  either  he 
will  hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other;  or  else  he 
171 


172  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

will  hold  to  the  one,  and  despise  the  other.     Ye 
cannot  serve  God  and  mammon.^ 

with  one  from  Proverbs, 

But  the  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light, 
that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day. 

The  way  of  the  wicked  is  as  darkness :  they  know 
not  at  what  they  stumble.^ 

For  the  practical  injunctions  compare 

Give  not  that  which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs, 
neither  cast  ye  your  pearls  before  swine,  lest  they 
trample  them  under  their  feet,  and  turn  again  and 
rend  you,^ 

with  that  saying  in  Proverbs  which  was  quoted  by  St. 
Paul  in  Romans : 

If  thine  enemy  be  hungry,  give  him  bread  to 
eat;  and  if  he  be  thirsty,  give  him  water  to  drink: 

For  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head, 
and  the  Lord  shall  reward  thee.^ 

For  the  prophetic  denunciations  compare  these  ut- 
terances of  Jesus, 

But  woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
crites! for  ye  shut  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  against 
men :  for  ye  neither  go  in  yourselves,  neither  suffer 
ye  them  that  are  entering  to  go  in. 

Woe   unto   you,   scribes   and   Pharisees,   hypo- 

»  Matt.  vi.  24.  ^  Prov.  iv.  18-19. 

3  Matt.  vii.  6.         *  Prov.  xxv.  21-22.     Cf.  Rom.  xii.  20. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT       173 

crites!  for  ye  devour  widows'  houses,  and  for  a 
pretence  make  long  prayer:  therefore  ye  shall  re- 
ceive the  greater  damnation. 

with  the  following  from  Isaiah : 

Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good 
evil;  that  put  darkness  for  light,  and  light  for 
darkness;  that  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for 
bitter! 

Woe  unto  them  that  are  wise  in  their  own  eyes, 
and  prudent  in  their  own  sight! 

Woe  unto  them  that  are  mighty  to  drink  wine, 
and  men  of  strength  to  mingle  strong  drink: 

Which  justify  the  wicked  for  reward,  and  take 
away  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  from  him !  ^ 

Finally,  in  using  the  parables  as  the  vehicle  of  his 
teaching,  Jesus  was  again  making  use  of  a  form 
already  familiar  to  the  Jews  from  their  own  script- 
ures. Everyone  knows  the  parable  of  the  one  ewe 
lamb  which  the  prophet  Kathan  told  to  David.^  Here 
are  two  more  examples :  the  first  is  the  little  apologue 
of  Jotham  in  the  story  of  xlbimelech: 

And  when  they  told  it  to  Jotham,  he  went  and 
stood  in  the  top  of  mount  Gerizim,  and  lifted  up 
his  voice,  and  cried,  and  said  unto  them,  Hearken 
unto  me,  ye  men  of  Shechem,  that  God  may  hearken 
unto  you. 

The  trees  went  forth  on  a  time  to  anoint  a  king 
»  Matt,  xxiii.  13-14.  ^  ig^.  y.  20-23.  » 2  Sam.  xii. 


174  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

over  them;  and  they  said  unto  the  oUve  tree, 
Reign  thou  over  us. 

But  the  oHve  tree  said  unto  them,  Should  I 
leave  my  fatness,  wherewith  by  me  they  honour 
God  and  man,  and  go  to  be  promoted  over  the 
trees? 

And  the  trees  said  to  the  fig  tree,  Come  thou, 
and  reign  over  us. 

But  the  fig  tree  said  unto  them.  Should  I  forsake 
my  sweetness,  and  my  good  fruit,  and  go  to  be 
promoted  over  the  trees? 

Then  said  the  trees  unto  the  vine,  Come  thou, 
and  reign  over  us. 

And  the  vine  said  unto  them,  Should  I  leave  my 
wine,  which  cheereth  God  and  man,  and  go  to  be 
promoted  over  the  trees? 

Then  said  all  the  trees  unto  the  bramble,  Come 
thou,  and  reign  over  us. 

And  the  bramble  said  unto  the  trees.  If  in  truth 
ye  anoint  me  king  over  you,  then  come  and  put 
your  trust  in  my  shadow;  and  if  not,  let  fire  come 
out  of  the  bramble,  and  devour  the  cedars  of 
Lebanon.^ 

This  second  one  is  from  the  prophet  Isaiah: 

Now  will  I  sing  to  my  wellbeloved  a  song  of  my 
beloved  touching  his  vineyard.  My  wellbeloved 
hath  a  vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful  hill: 

And  he  fenced  it,  and  gathered  out  the  stones 
thereof,  and  planted  it  with  the  choicest  vine,  and 
built  a  tower  in  the  midst  of  it,  and  also  made  a 
*  Judges  ix.  7-15. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      175 

winepress  tlierein:  and  he  looked  that  it  should 
bring  forth  grapes,  and  it  brought  forth  wild  grapes. 

And  now,  O  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  and  men 
of  Judah,  judge,  I  pray  you,  betwixt  me  and  my 
vineyard. 

What  could  have  been  done  more  to  my  vine- 
yard, that  I  have  not  done  in  it?  wherefore,  when 
I  looked  that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes,  brought 
it  forth  wild  grapes? 

And  now,  go  to;  I  will  tell  you  what  I  will  do  to 
my  vineyard:  I  will  take  away  the  hedge  thereof, 
and  it  shall  be  eaten  up;  and  break  down  the  wall 
thereof,  and  it  shall  be  trodden  down: 

And  I  will  lay  it  waste:  it  shall  not  be  pruned 
nor  digged;  but  there  shall  come  up  briers  and 
thorns:  I  will  also  command  the  clouds  that  they 
rain  no  rain  upon  it. 

For  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  is  the 
house  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of  Judah  his  pleasant 
plant:  and  he  looked  for  judgment,  and  behold 
oppression;  for  righteousness,  but  behold  a  cry.^ 

Thus  all  of  these  forms  of  discourse  which  Jesus 
made  use  of  in  his  teaching  are  closely  akin  to  forms 
found  in  the  Old  Testament.  So  far  as  literary 
classification  goes  these  teachings  of  the  Gospel  can- 
not be  separated  from  the  Old  Testament  literature. 
This  likeness  of  the  external  form  springs  from  a 
likeness  in  the  forms  of  thought.  In  these  sayings  of 
Jesus  we  may  trace  the  characteristics  which  I  have 
» Isa.  V.  1-7. 


176  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

already  pointed  out  in  the  wisdom  literature  of  the 
Old  Testament.  He  states  a  fact  or  declares  a  pre- 
cept, and  leaves  it  with  no  attempt  to  develop  its  rela- 
tions or  draw  out  its  implications.  His  discourses, 
like  the  poetical  wisdom  of  the  Old  Testament,  deal 
only  with  the  solid  and  unanalysed  facts  of  existence ; 
consequently  they  have  the  same  entire  objectivity 
which  we  have  found  to  be  a  trait  of  the  Hebrew  wis- 
dom. In  these  teachings  there  are  no  secondary 
causes :  God  watches  over  the  fall  of  a  sparrow  just 
as  he  created  the  universe  and  established  laws  and 
ordinances  for  men  to  obey.  Therefore,  though  the 
language  from  which  we  get  these  teachings  is  Greek, 
the  forms  and  the  thought  which  they  express  are 
those  of  the  Oriental  world. 


II 


When  we  pass  on,  however,  to  the  Fourth  Gospel 
and  to  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul,  we  find  a  striking 
change.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  though  the  sentences 
are  almost  as  simple  as  in  the  first  three,  the  thought 
is  continuous  through  long  passages.  For  example,  in 
the  story  of  the  healing  of  the  blind  man  the  miracle, 
simply  and  briefly  told,  leads  on  to  the  examination 
of  the  man  and  his  parents  by  the  Pharisees,  at  the 
end  of  which 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      177 

The  man  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Why 
herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  ye  know  not 
from  whence  he  is,  and  yet  he  hath  opened  mine 
eyes. 

Now  we  know  that  God  heareth  not  sinners: 
but  if  any  man  be  a  worshipper  of  God,  and  doeth 
his  will,  him  he  heareth. 

Since  the  world  began  was  it  not  heard  that  any 
man  opened  the  eyes  of  one  that  was  born  blind. 

If  this  man  were  not  of  God,  he  could  do  nothing. 

Then  after  Jesus  has  sought  him  out,  and  has 
spoken  the  discourse  on  the  True  Shepherd,  the  story 
comes  back  to  its  original  starting  point : 

There  was  a  division  therefore  again  among  the 
Jews  for  these  sayings. 

And  many  of  them  said.  He  hath  a  devil,  and  is 
mad;  why  hear  ye  him? 

Others  said.  These  are  not  the  words  of  him  that 
hath  a  devil.  Can  a  devil  open  the  eyes  of  the 
blind?! 

The  author  of  this  gospel  shows  here  as  elsewhere  a 
sense  of  structure  and  development  for  which  one 
may  look  in  vain  in  the  first  three  gospels. 

In  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul  and  in  Hebrews  we  get 

still   farther    away    from   the    merely    agglutinative 

coherence  of  the  Old  Testament,  for  here  we  find  a 

rich  and  varied  apparatus  of  words,   phrases,   and 

*  John  ix-x. 


178  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

clauses  to  express  the  reasoned  sense  of  the  transition 
from  one  subject  to  another,  and  of  the  relations  be- 
tween them.  Romans  is  full  of  such  passages  as, 
^'  Therefore  being  justified  by  faith,"  or  "  Likewise 
the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmities '' ;  and  in  He- 
brews occurs  such  a  passage  as  this : 

Now  of  the  things  which  we  have  spoken  this  is 
the  sum:  We  have  such  an  high  priest,  who  is  set 
on  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  the  Majesty 
in  the  heavens; 

A  minister  of  the  sanctuary,  and  of  the  true 
tabernacle,  which  the  Lord  pitched,  and  not  man.^ 

Here  the  author  consciously  and  explicitly  brings  to 
an  end  a  considerable  stretch  of  reasoning  by  sum- 
ming it  up  into  an  abstraction;  and  he  uses  his  con- 
nective clause,  '^  Now  of  the  things  which  we  have 
spoken  this  is  the  sum,"  to  give  notice  of  his  purpose. 
Such  phrases  and  clauses  express  states  of  mind  and 
acts  of  thought  which  are  not  expressed  at  all  in  the 
Old  Testament.  This  conscious,  defined  sense  of  the 
relations  between  ideas  is  as  necessary  and  almost  as 
palpable  a  part  of  the  stream  of  thought  for  us  as  are 
our  sensations  of  light  or  our  perceptions  of  men  and 
animals ;  and  the  particles  and  phrases  which  express 
them  are  therefore  an  inseparable  part  of  our  modern 
language.  To  write  on  science  or  history  or  philos- 
'  Heb.  viii.  1-2. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      179 

ophy  without  them  would  be  like  building  a  wall  of 
brick  without  mortar;  and  their  presence  in  these 
epistles  is  in  itself  enough  to  put  the  latter  into 
another  region  of  literature  from  that  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  first  three  gospels. 

In  the  same  way  we  find  that  the  sentences  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  and  of  the  epistles  are  more  complex 
and  longer  than  those  of  the  other  gospels.  In  SL 
John  one  finds  such  sentences  as  this: 

And  as  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilder- 
ness even  so  must  the  Son  of  man  be  Hf ted  up : 

That  whosoever  beheveth  in  him  may  have 
eternal  Ufe.^ 

In  St.  Paul,  especially  in  the  somewhat  imperfect 
translation  of  the  Authorised  Version,  the  complex- 
ity of  sentences  is  sometimes  so  great  that  the  main 
thought  is  lost  in  its  modifications  and  amplifica- 
tions : 

Unto  me,  who  am  less  than  the  least  of  all  saints, 
is  this  grace  given,  that  I  should  preach  among  the 
Gentiles  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ; 

And  to  make  all  men  see  what  is  the  fellowship  of 
the  mystery,  which  from  the  beginning  of  the  world 
hath  been  hid  in  God,  who  created  all  things  by 
Jesus  Christ: 

To  the  intent  that  now  unto  the  principalities 

» John  iii.  14-16. 


180  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

and  powers  in  heavenly  places  might  be  known 
by  the  church  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God, 

According  to  the  eternal  purpose  which  he 
purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord: 

In  whom  we  have  boldness  and  access  with  con- 
fidence by  the  faith  of  him.^ 

Such  sentences  body  forth  a  far  more  complex  state 
of  mind  than  the  simple  sentences  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. Even  in  the  simpler  sentence  which  I  have 
just  quoted  from  St,  John  the  objective  facts — 
Moses,  and  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  and  Christ 
crucified — are  subordinated  to  the  perception,  now 
clearly  defined  and  abstracted,  of  the  faith  which 
leads  to  salvation.  This  is  a  kind  of  writing,  there- 
fore, whose  chief  aim  is  to  express  not  the  solid  re- 
alities of  the  external  world,  but  to  bring  out  the  re- 
lations set  up  between  them  by  thought;  and  such 
sentences  as  these  which  we  are  considering  com- 
bine and  recombine  these  facts  in  an  endless  variety 
of  ways  in  order  to  make  clear  these  relations.  We 
have  seen  that  in  Hebrew  a  sentence  could  some- 
times be  complete  without  a  verb:  in  this  kind  of 
writing  the  verb  and  the  grammatical  structure  of 
the  sentence  may  be  the  most  important  part  of  the 
expression. 

In  like  manner  as  one  passes  on  from  St.  Luke 

1  Ephes.  iii.  8-12. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      181 

into  St.  John  one  sees  that  the  words  are  used  with 
a  new  kind  of  significance: 

In  him  was  Hfe;  and  the  Ufe  was  the  Hght  of  men. 
And  the  Hght  shine th  in  darkness;  and  the  dark- 
ness comprehended  it  not.^ 

Here  Ufe  and  light  and  darhness  obviously  have 
meanings  far  beyond  their  mere  literal  denotation: 
their  force  now  is  no  longer  merely  in  their  physical 
signification;  it  is  rather  in  their  suggestions  and  im- 
plications. Their  objective  and  every-day  meaning  is 
lost  in  their  indefinably  suggestive  power.  So  all 
through  this  gospel,  in  the  well  of  water  springing 
up  into  everlasting  life,  the  good  shepherd,  the  bread 
of  life,  the  unstudied  similitudes  of  the  other  gos- 
pels have  given  place  to  suggestions  of  illimitable 
thoughts  which  trail  clouds  of  mystical  glory  through 
the  pages.  In  the  epistles  we  meet  still  another  class 
of  words,  which  have  even  less  counterpart  in  the 
Old  Testament.  Such  words  as  predestination,  con- 
cupiscence, heresy,  immutability  did  not  exist  in  the 
old  Hebrew ;  yet  in  these  writings  of  the  ^ew  Testa- 
ment such  abstract  words,  like  the  complex  sentences, 
are  a  necessity  of  expression.  The  epistles  of  St. 
Paul  and  Hebrews  could  not  have  been  written  in 
the  vocabulary  of  Proverbs  and  Job. 
^  John  i.  4-5, 


182  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Thus  in  the  case  of  the  words  as  in  that  of  the 
structure  of  the  chapters  and  of  the  sentences,  the 
meaning  is  no  longer,  as  in  the  Old  Testament,  lim- 
ited to  the  statement  of  single  propositions  and  in- 
junctions resting  on  objective  fact:  the  language  is 
now  pregnant  with  intellectual  meanings,  and  it  is 
used  bj  writers  who  must  strive  to  set  forth  these 
meanings  clearly  and  exhaustively. 

This  difference  between  these  epistles  and  the  rest 
of  the  Bible  is  so  essential  that  I  will  venture  fur- 
ther to  illustrate  it.    Proverbs  has  the  verse: 

He  that  spare th  the  rod  hateth  his  son:  but  he 
that  loveth  him  chasteneth  him  betimes.^ 

St.  Paul  uses  a  closely  related  idea  as  follows : 

Now  I  say,  That  the  heir,  as  long  as  he  is  a  child, 
differeth  nothing  from  a  servant,  though  he  be 
lord  of  all; 

But  is  under  tutors  and  governors  until  the  time 
appointed  of  the  father. 

Even  so  we,  when  we  were  children,  were  in 
bondage  under  the  elements  of  the  world: 

But  when  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come, 
God  sent  forth  his  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made 
under  the  law, 

To  redeem  them  that  were  under  the  law,  that 
we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons. 

*Prov.  xiii.  24. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      183 

And  because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the 
Spirit  of  his  Son  into  your  hearts,  crying,  Abba, 
Father. 

Wherefore  thou  art  no  more  a  servant,  but  a 
son;  and  if  a  son,  then  an  heir  of  God  through 
Christ.i 

When  we  compare  the  two  passages  we  see  that  the 
Hebrew  sage  stopped  short  with  the  utterance  of 
the  obvious  truth,  without  searching  out  its  conse- 
quences. St.  Paul,  on  the  other  hand,  had  to  search 
out  and  extract  what  is  for  his  present  purpose  the 
essential  attribute  of  the  heirship,  the  state  of  de- 
pendence before  the  full  inheritance.  This  sharp 
and  controlling  sense  of  the  relation  between  the 
facts,  distinct  from  the  facts  themselves,  he  could  not 
have  expressed  in  the  downright  directness  of  the  Old 
Testament  style. 

For  a  second  example  we  may  consider  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  author  of  Hebrews  uses  the  ordi- 
nances of  Exodus  and  Leviticus  about  the  sacrifice 
and  the  building  of  the  tabernacle.  The  priestly 
writers  who  filled  in  these  portions  of  the  Pentateuch 
with  their  great  mass  of  precise  and  minute  details 
were  w^holly  preoccupied  with  the  proper  ordering  of 
present  realities.  The  reason  for  all  their  careful- 
ness they  assumed :  they  were  planning  a  ritual  which 

» Gal.  iv.  1-7. 


184  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

should  be  worthy  of  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts.  The 
writer  of  Hebrews,  on  the  other  hand,  must  find  in 
these  services  a  deeper  and  hidden  meaning. 

Then  verily  the  first  covenant  had  also  or- 
dinances of  divine  service,  and  a  worldly  sanctuary. 

For  there  was  a  tabernacle  made;  the  first, 
wherein  was  the  candlestick,  and  the  table,  and 
the  shewbread;  which  is  called  the  sanctuary. 

And  after  the  second  veil,  the  tabernacle  which 
is  called  the  Holiest  of  all; 

Which  had  the  golden  censer,  and  the  ark  of 
the  covenant  overlaid  round  about  with  gold, 
wherein  was  the  golden  pot  that  had  manna,  and 
Aaron's  rod  that  budded,  and  the  tables  of  the 
covenant; 

And  over  it  the  cherubims  of  glory  shadowing 
the  mercyseat;  of  which  we  cannot  now  speak 
particularly. 

Now  when  these  things  were  thus  ordained,  the 
priests  went  always  into  the  first  tabernacle, 
accomplishing  the  service  of  God. 

But  into  the  second  went  the  high  priest  alone 
once  every  year,  not  without  blood,  which  he  offered 
for  himself,  and  for  the  errors  of  the  people: 

The  Holy  Ghost  this  signifying,  that  the  way 
into  the  holiest  of  all  was  not  yet  made  manifest, 
while  as  the  first  tabernacle  was  yet  standing: 

Which  was  a  figure  for  the  time  then  present, 
in  which  were  offered  both  gifts  and  sacrifices, 
that  could  not  make  him  that  did  the  service 
perfect,  as  pertaining  to  the  conscience; 


THE  EPISTLES   OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      185 

Which  stood  only  in  meats  and  drinks,  and 
divers  washings,  and  carnal  ordinances,  imposed  on 
them  until  the  time  of  reformation.^ 

For  such  a  thinker  the  external  ordinances  were 
overshadowed  by  the  meaning  of  the  symbols.  His 
object  of  thought  was  no  longer  confined  to  the  exact 
fulfillment  of  certain  prescribed  forms :  he  was  con- 
cerned rather  with  implications,  conclusions,  and 
inferences  drawn  from  a  study  of  the  objective  facts 
of  the  old  dispensation  by  abstraction  and  general- 
ization. 

It  is  the  dominance  in  these  epistles  of  the  New 
Testament  of  this  whole  new  range  of  thought  and 
mental  action  that  makes  the  wisdom  literature  of 
the  Old  Testament  seem  by  comparison  so  remote 
and  so  primitive.  Two  fields  of  literature  could 
hardly  be  more  different;  and  the  difference  is  due 
to  the  difference  in  interests,  in  thought,  and  in  out- 
look between  two  ages  of  the  world.  In  a  word, 
when  we  pass  from  Proverbs  and  Joh  to  >S'^.  John  and 
Romans  and  Hebrews  we  have  passed  from  the  world 
of  Solomon  to  the  world  of  Socrates. 

St.  Paul  himself  summed  up  this  whole  difference 
in  mental  constitution  between  the  Jews  and  the 
world  of  Western  thought  when  he  wrote  in  1  Cor- 
inthians : 

^  Heb.  ix.  1-10. 


186  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

For  the  Jews  require  a  sign,  and  the  Greeks  seek 
after  wisdom: 

But  we  preach  Christ  crucified,  unto  the  Jews 
a  stumbhng  block,  and  unto  the  Greeks  foohshness.^ 

To  the  Jews  the  crucifixion  was  a  stumbling  block 
because  it  destroyed  all  supernatural  sanction  of  the 
new  law.  For  their  minds  the  new  law  which  Jesus 
proclaimed  could  draw  its  authority  only  from  his 
own  personal  authority  and  from  the  mighty  works 
with  which  it  was  accompanied:  as  is  said  in  St. 
John  ii.  23,  "  many  believed  in  his  name  when  they 
saw  the  miracles  which  he  did."  When  what  had 
seemed  to  some  of  them  such  a  supernatural  sanction 
was  shattered  by  the  miserable  death  of  Jesus  on 
the  cross  they  could  see  no  reason  to  accept  him  as 
the  Messiah.  To  the  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
crucifixion  was  foolishness  because  it  led  nowhere; 
because  in  itself  it  gave  them  no  new  understand- 
ing of  the  nature  of  this  new  dispensation  which 
should  illuminate  it  and  make  it  its  own  sanction. 
To  them  the  death  of  Jesus  was  merely  futile,  for 
it  gave  them  no  new  insight  into  the  secrets  of  the 
universe,  and  brought  no  new  means  of  understand- 
ing life.  St.  Paul's  special  mission  was  the  transla- 
tion of  a  gospel  which  had  been  first  delivered  in 
terms  of  Jewish  and  Oriental  thought  into  terms  of 
1  1  Cor.  i.  22-23. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      187 

Greek  and  modern  thouglit;  and  to  fulfil  this  mis- 
sion he  had  to  write  in  a  manner  very  different  from 
that  of  Proverbs  and  J  oh:  men  trained  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  Socrates  would  never  have  accepted  as 
an  explanation  of  the  world  such  a  collection  of  ran- 
dom and  heterogeneous  aphorisms  as  that  contained 
in  the  former,  or  a  series  of  hardly  connected  poems 
like  the  latter.  Such  a  wisdom  could  give  no  aid  to 
men  who  were  trying  to  define  the  nature  of  good- 
ness, for  it  offered  no  new  means  of  harmonizing  the 
universe  and  ordering  the  welter  of  experience  into 
an  intellectual  system.  The  Greek  mind  there- 
fore would  have  little  interest  in  the  new  religion 
unless  it  offered  a  new  and  deeper  understanding 
of  the  world  and  so  carried  its  own  sanction  for  the 
new  and  revolutionary  laws  of  conduct  which  fol- 
lowed from  it. 

Thus  these  epistles  had  something  of  the  universal 
aim  of  philosophy.  St.  Paul,  especially  in  polemic 
passages  where  he  is  defending  and  justifying  the 
gospel  of  Christ,  felt  the  necessity  of  harmonizing 
the  old  dispensation  with  the  new.  He  must  show 
that  there  was  no  "  catastrophe,'^  as  the  geologists 
would  say,  in  the  way  the  old  faith  had  been  swal- 
lowed up  to  make  place  for  the  new.  His  effort  was 
to  prove  that  the  new  dispensation  was  an  outgrowth 
and  fulfillment  of  the  old. 


188  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Know  ye  therefore,  that  they  which  are  of  faith, 
the  same  are  the  children  of  Abraham. 

And  the  scripture,  foreseeing  that  God  would 
justify  the  heathen  through  faith,  preached  before 
the  gospel  unto  Abraham,  saying.  In  thee  shall 
all  nations  be  blessed. 

So  then  they  which  be  of  faith  are  blessed  with 
faithful  Abraham. 

For  as  many  as  are  of  the  works  of  the  law,  are 
under  the  curse:  for  it  is  written.  Cursed  is  every 
one  that  continueth  not  in  all  things  which  are 
written  in  the  book  of  the  law  to  do  them. 

But  that  no  man  is  justified  by  the  law  in  the 
sight  of  God,  it  is  evident:  for.  The  just  shall  live 
by  faith. 

And  the  law  is  not  of  faith:  but,  The  man  that 
doeth  them  shall  live  in  them. 

Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the 
law,  being  made  a  curse  for  us:  for  it  is  written. 
Cursed  is  every  one  that  hangeth  on  a  tree: 

That  the  blessing  of  Abraham  might  come  on 
the  Gentiles  through  Jesus  Christ;  that  we  might 
receive  the  promise  of  the  Spirit  through  faith. ^ 

His  mode  of  reasoning  he  took  over  from  the 
somewhat  literal  allegorizing  of  the  Jewish  rabbis 
and  the  mystical  allegorizing  of  the  Hellenistic  Jews, 
for  he  was  a  Jew  to  the  core;  but  where  they  al- 
legorized the  past  history  of  Israel  to  find  fantastic 
similitudes  for  present  facts,  or  for  doctrines  which 
1  Gal.  iii.  7-14. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      189 

were  already  formulated  (as  Philo  found  in  the  Pen- 
tateuch an  allegorical  statement  of  all  the  achieve- 
ments of  Greek  philosophy),  St.  Paul  uses  such  simil- 
itudes as  a  means  of  symbolizing  and  bodying  forth 
glimpses  of  larger  and  pregnant  truths  which  can  be 
suggested  but  not  defined: 

Which  things  are  an  allegory:  for  these  are  the 
two  covenants;  the  one  from  the  mount  Sinai, 
which  gendereth  to  bondage,  which  is  Agar. 

For  this  Agar  is  mount  Sinai  in  Arabia,  and 
answereth  to  Jerusalem  which  now  is,  and  is  in 
bondage  with  her  children. 

But  Jerusalem  which  is  above  is  free,  which  is 
the  mother  of  us  all.^ 

The  difference  is  similar  to  that  between  metaphysics 
and  poetry:  the  former  strives  to  define  absolute 
principles  of  the  universe  and  of  existence ;  the  latter 
stirs  the  imagination  to  seeing  them  by  intuition. 
The  rabbinical  learning  was  occupied  with  establish- 
ing and  justifying  doctrines  which  were  already 
known:  St.  Paul  sets  forth  new  truths  in  the  terms 
of  the  history  of  Israel.  Always,  however,  his  aim 
was  to  find  a  way  in  which  the  new  and  the  old 
might  be  brought  together  into  a  single  principle 
which  would  unify  and  harmonize  them.  He  had, 
in  part  at  any  rate,  the  instinct  for  understanding 
1  Gal.  iv.  24-26 


190  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

his  universe  which  is  so  distinct  from  being  satisfied 
with  mere  obedience  to  the  law  and  the  prophets. 

This  spontaneous  desire  to  bring  diverse  facts  into 
a  single  system  of  thought,  and  to  show  an  inher- 
ent connection  between  the  objects  of  experience 
through  an  underlying  unity  of  idea,  appears  even 
more  clearly  in  the  Gospel  According  to  St.  John  and 
Hebrews,  works  which  show  the  deep  influence  of 
St.  Paul  and  of  his  ways  of  thought.  Hebrews  shows 
the  way  in  which  the  new  covenant  given  through 
the  Son  superseded  the  old; 

But  now  hath  he  obtained  a  more  excellent 
ministry,  by  how  much  also  he  is  the  mediator  of  a 
better  covenant,  which  was  established  upon  better 
promises. 

For  if  that  first  covenant  had  been  faultless,  then 
should  no  place  have  been  sought  for  the  second. 

For  finding  fault  with  them,  he  saith,  Behold, 
the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  when  I  will  make  a 
new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel  and  with 
the  house  of  Judah: 

In  that  he  saith,  A  new  covenant,  he  hath  made 
the  first  old.  Now  that  which  decay eth  and 
waxeth  old  is  ready  to  vanish  away.^ 

And  every  priest  standeth  daily  ministering  and 
offering  oftentimes  the  same  sacrifices,  which  can 
never  take  away  sins : 

1  Heb.  viii.  6-8.  13. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      191 

But  this  man,  after  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice 
for  sins  for  ever,  sat  down  on  the  right  hand  of 
God; 

From  henceforth  expecting  till  his  enemies  be 
made  his  footstool. 

For  by  one  offering  he  hath  perfected  for  ever 
them  that  are  sanctified. ^ 

Here  theology  has  definitely  begun,  for  this  writer  is 
consciously  expounding  a  system  in  which  the  rela- 
tions of  the  old  and  the  new  shall  be  made  clear  and 
rational,  and  in  which  both  the  teachings  of  the  law 
and  the  prophets  and  the  new  revelation  through 
Jesus  shall  have  their  ordered  and  recognisable 
places. 

The  same  impelling  need  to  make  the  gospel  bring 
order  out  of  an  otherwise  unintelligible  universe  ap- 
pears in  the  prologue  to  St,  John: 

In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word 
was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God. 

The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God. 

All  things  were  made  by  him;  and  without  him 
was  not  any  thing  made  that  was  made. 

In  him  was  life;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men.2 

Here  the  universal  principle  by  which  the  whole  uni- 
verse could  be  thought  into  a  single  system  is  found 
in  the  mystical  idea  of  Christ  as  the  Word.  This 
is  a  philosophical  and  metaphysical  operation  of 
^Heb.  X.  11-14.  'Johni.  1-4. 


192  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

thought;  and  this  step  taken,  Christian  thinkers  are 
on  the  same  ground  as  the  philosophers  of  Greece, 
for  now  they  can  apprehend  the  universe  as  a  single 
whole. 

When  we  turn  to  the  moral  teachings  of  St.  Paul 
we  see  that  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  dif- 
ference in  thought  they  differ  in  form  from  the 
teachings  in  the  first  three  gospels  and  those  of  the 
Epistle  of  St.  James.  In  these  the  teachings  take 
the  form  of  independent  precepts,  ordinarily  not 
based  on  any  other  reason  than  the  obvious  sanction 
of  the  divine  command.  St.  Paul,  on  the  other  hand, 
always  shows  that  the  new  rules  of  life  which  he  is 
enforcing  are  necessary  results  of  the  new  concep- 
tion of  the  world  which  underlies  the  gospel.  In 
Colossians  he  declares: 

If  ye  then  be  risen  with  Christ,  seek  those  things 
which  are  above,  where  Christ  sitteth  on  the  right 
hand  of  God. 

Set  your  affection  on  things  above,  not  on 
things  on  the  earth. 

For  ye  are  dead,  and  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ 
in  God.i 

In  the  first  three  gospels  peace  and  forgiveness  are 

a  matter   of   divine   injunction.      ^'  If  thy  brother 

trespass  against  thee,  rebuke  him;  and  if  he  repent 

» CoL  iii.  1-3. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      193 

forgive  him."  St.  Paul,  summing  up  in  Galatians 
the  practical  and  positive  side  of  Christianity,  de- 
clares : 

But  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace, 
longsuffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith, 

Moekness,  temperance:  against  such  there  is  no 
law. 

And  they  that  are  Christ's  have  crucified  the 
flesh  with  the  affections  and  lusts. 

If  we  live  in  the  Spirit,  let  us  also  walk  in  the 
Spirit.  1 

Everywhere  in  his  epistles  he  shows  that  the  new 
life  of  the  Christian  follows  of  necessity  from  the 
new  truths  which  he  has  accepted.  In  other  words 
his  writings  show  the  mental  workings  of  the  ab- 
stract reasoner,  not  merely  that  of  the  intuitive 
thinker. 


ni 


^Nevertheless,  one  would  never  put  St.  Paul's  writ- 
ings in  the  same  class  with  those  of  modern  phi- 
losophy or  theology,  and  this  not  merely  because  he 
was  a  Jew,  or  because  of-  the  difference  in  power 
of  inspiration  and  of  the  freshness  and  importance 
of  the  message;  for  though  he  uses  the  forms  of 
speech  which  belong  to  modern  thought  he  uses  them 
1  Gal.  V.  22-25. 


194  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

in  a  very  different  way.  His  epistles,  except  per- 
haps Romans^  show  little  predetermined  plan:  their 
progress  from  one  idea  to  another  seems  often  to 
follow  the  impulse  of  the  moment  rather  than  a 
single  and  firmly  grasped  idea.  His  sentences,  as 
we  have  seen,  frequently  run  away  with  themselves 
and  end  in  a  manner  that  he  could  hardly  have  fore- 
seen when  he  started  them;  and  the  vocabulary, 
though  containing  many  abstract  words,  is  even 
more  generally  characterized  by  the  figurative  use 
of  concrete  words.  Indeed,  the  most  striking  char- 
acteristic of  his  style  is  the  way  in  which  passages 
of  reasoning  soar  away  into  bursts  of  splendid  elo- 
quence which  have  far  more  of  the  nature  of 
poetry  than  of  scientific  precision.  Thus  in  Romans, 
after  the  careful  exposition  of  the  life  of  the  flesh 
and  the  life  of  the  spirit  and  predestination,  he  sud- 
denly breaks  away  into  the  triumphant  declaration 
of  faith: 

Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ? 
shall  tribulation,  or  distress,  or  persecution,  or 
famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword? 

As  it  is  written.  For  thy  sake  we  are  killed  all 
the  day  long;  we  are  accounted  as  sheep  for  the 
slaughter. 

Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are  more  than  con- 
querors through  him  that  loved  us. 

For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life, 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      195 

nor   angels,    nor   principalities,    nor   powers,    nor 
things  present,  nor  things  to  come. 

Nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature, 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God, 
which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.^ 

Again  in  1  Corinthians,  after  the  exposition  of  the 
church  as  the  mystical  body  of  Christ,  his  style  rises 
unconsciously  to  the  more  poetical  and  heightened 
diction  of  the  chapter  on  charity: 

Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of 
angels,  and  have  not  charity,  I  am  become  as 
sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

And  though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and 
understand  all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge;  and 
though  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could  remove 
mountains,  and  have  not  charity,  I  am  nothing. 

And  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the 
poor,  and  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned, 
and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth  me  nothing. 

Charity  suffereth  long,  and  is  kind;  charity 
envieth  not;  charity  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not 
puffed  up. 

Doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her 
own,  is  not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil; 

Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the 
truth ; 

Beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth 
all  things,  endureth  all  things.^ 

»  Rom.  viii.  35-39.  •  1  Cor.  xiii.  1-7. 


196  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And  in  the  most  eloquent  passage  in  all  his  writ- 
ings, the  great  proof  of  immortality,  the  style,  be- 
ginning at  a  level  which  even  for  St.  Paul  is  distin- 
guished by  a  certain  restrained  intensity  of  feeling, 
rises  gradually  until  it  breaks  forth  into  the  sheer 
cry  of  exultation  at  the  end : 

So  when  this  corruptible  shall  have  put  on  in- 
corruption,  and  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on 
immortality,  then  shall  be  brought  to  pass  the 
saying  that  is  written,  Death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory. 

O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?  O  grave,  where  is 
thy  victory? 

The  sting  of  death  is  sin;  and  the  strength  of 
sin  is  the  law. 

But  thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the 
victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.^ 

If  theology  be  a  science  this  constant  falling  back 
on  the  figurative  to  express  his  ideas  removes  St. 
Paul  from  the  ranks  of  the  theologians ;  for  it  shows 
that  he  was  setting  forth  glimpses  of  truths  too  great 
and  transcendent  to  be  reduced  to  system.  He  trusts 
to  the  emotional  implications  of  things  rather  than 
to  the  cool  and  abstract  inferences  drawn  from  them 
by  rigidly  logical  processes.  We  have  seen  that  the 
use  of  concrete  words  carries  with  it  inevitably  some 
appeal  to  the  emotions,  and  it  is  only  as  abstraction 
1  Cor.  XV.  54-57, 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      197 

approaches  the  rarefaction  of  mathematics  or  of  pure 
logic  that  all  element  of  the  emotional  is  stripped 
away.  With  St.  Paul  so  much  of  the  expression 
lies  in  the  marvellous  power  of  the  figures  of  speech, 
that  we  seem  to  be  turning  our  backs  on  modern 
thought,  and  reverting  to  the  methods  of  thought 
and  of  expression  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  this 
same  great  chapter  of  1  Corinthians  he  makes  no 
pause  to  sum  up  his  thought  in  abstractions : 

But  some  man  will  say,  How  are  the  dead  raised 
up?  and  with  what  body  do  they  come? 

Thou  fool,  that  which  thou  sowest  is  not  quick- 
ened, except  it  die: 

And  that  which  thou  sowest,  thou  sowest  not 
that  body  that  shall  be,  but  bare  grain,  it  may 
chance  of  wheat,  or  of  some  other  grain: 

But  God  giveth  it  a  body  as  it  hath  pleased 
him,  and  to  every  seed  his  own  body. 

There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and  another  glory 
of  the  moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars:  for 
one  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory. 

So  also  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  It  is 
sown  in  corruption;  it  is  raised  in  incorruption : 

It  is  sown  in  dishonour;  it  is  raised  in  glory: 
it  is  sown  in  weakness;  it  is  raised  in  power: 

It  is  sown  a  natural  body;  it  is  raised  a  spiritual 
body.  There  is  a  natural  body;  and  there  is  a 
spiritual  body. 


198  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And  so  it  is  written,  the  first  man  Adam  was 
made  a  living  soul;  the  last  Adam  was  made  a 
quickening  spirit.^ 

Here  the  great  truths  lie  rather  in  the  connotation 
of  the  words,  in  their  implications,  associations  and 
uplifting  suggestions,  than  in  their  literal  meaning; 
and  if  these  clouds  of  feeling  were  stripped  away  the 
value  and  stimulating  power  of  the  passage  would 
fall  dead. 

IV 

All  this  is  merely  another  way  of  saying  that  the 
language  of  St.  Paul  is  largely  mystical;  and  in  this 
respect  his  writings  go  with  portions  of  Hebrews,  and 
especially  with  the  Gospel  according  to  8t.  John  and 
the  Epistles  of  St.  John.  The  word  mystical,  how- 
ever, is  so  vague  a  description  that  we  must  come  to 
a  closer  understanding  of  its  significance.  And  a 
clearer  understanding  and  definition  of  the  mystical 
habit  of  thought  and  expression  will  help  us  to  define 
more  exactly  the  literary  character  of  these  portions 
of  the  l^ew  Testament  and  so  to  appreciate  better 
their  place  and  importance  in  English  literature. 
Here,  as  in  the  last  chapter,  we  shall  get  light  on 
our  problem  from  the  modern  understanding  of  the 
faculty  of  reasoning. 

^  1  Cor.  xy,  35-38,  41-45, 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      199 

I  have  shown  that  reasoning  rests  on  the  ability- 
first  to  break  up  the  concrete  facts  of  experience  into 
the  various  attributes  and  qualities  by  which  we  know 
them,  and  then  to  see  that  a  similarity  which  has 
been  vaguely  apprehended  by  intuition  springs  from 
the  necessary  concomitants  of  some  one  of  these  at- 
tributes. To  take  a  simple  example  from  our  own 
subject,  reasoning  about  the  composition  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch proceeded  first  by  the  extraction  of  certain 
common  attributes  and  qualities,  such  as  abstractness, 
formal  precision,  and  an  interest  narrowed  to  matters 
of  ecclesiastical  organization  and  chronology;  these 
attributes  once  extracted  led  to  the  assumption  of 
a  document  marked  throughout  by  these  attributes 
which  could  be  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  work; 
then  by  following  up  the  consequences  of  these  attrib- 
utes it  became  evident  that  this  document  must  come 
from  a  school  of  priests  late  in  the  history  of  Israel. 
The  final  inference  depends  on  the  ability  to  do  two 
things :  first,  to  single  out  and  define  the  attributes  in 
such  a  way  that  the;)^  can  be  referred  to  without  am- 
biguity wherever  they  occur ;  and  second,  the  ability 
to  follow  out  their  consequences  without  allowing 
feeling  or  other  extraneous  considerations  to  creep 
in  and  confuse  the  result. 

When  we  apply  this  test  to  these  semi-mystical 
writings  of  the  New  Testament  we  shall  find  that 


200  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

they  are  not  the  products  of  a  strictly  defined  reason- 
ing. At  most  they  show  the  ability  to  see  that  the 
similarity  between  ideas  is  significant  and  pregnant, 
and  to  make  a  partial  analysis  and  a  vague  applica- 
tion of  its  results  and  further  consequences.  In  this 
partial  power  of  reasoning  they  show  a  more  devel- 
oped form  of  thought  than  that  reflected  by  the  wis- 
dom books  of  the  Old  Testament :  but  still  a  form  of 
thought  which  stops  short  of  the  precision  and  defi- 
niteness  of  modern  scientific  reasoning. 

A  comparison  of  a  passage  from  St.  Matthew  with 
one  from  >S^^.  John  based  on  a  similar  figure  will 
make  clearer  what  I  mean.    In  8t.  Matthew  we  read : 

Ye  are  the  Hght  of  the  world.  A  city  that  is  set 
on  an  hill  cannot  be  hid. 

Neither  do  men  light  a  candle,  and  put  it  under 
a  bushel,  but  on  a  candlestick;  and  it  giveth  light 
unto  all  that  are  in  the  house. 

Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men,  that  they 
may  see  your  good  works,  and  glorify  your  father 
which  is  in  heaven.^ 

With  this  consider  the  following  from  the  prologue 
to  8t.  John: 

In  him  was  life ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men. 
And  the  light  shineth  in  darkness;  and  the  dark- 
ness comprehended  it  not.^ 
>  Matt.  V.  14-16.  '  John  i.  4-5. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      201 

And  also  the  following: 

Then  Jesus  said  unto  them,  Yet  a  little  while  is 
the  Hght  with  you.  Walk  while  ye  have  the  light, 
lest  darkness  come  upon  you:  for  he  that  walketh 
in  darkness  knoweth  not  whither  he  goeth. 

While  ye  have  light,  believe  in  the  light,  that 
ye  may  be  the  children  of  light.  ^ 

In  these  two  passages  though  the  figure  is  the  same, 
the  treatment  is  entirely  different:  in  the  former  we 
have  a  simple  form  of  the  parable,  in  the  latter  a 
typical  case  of  the  symbolism  by  which  the  mystical 
way  of  thought  proceeds,  but  also  simple.  In  the  for- 
mer the  similarity  between  the  light  of  the  candle 
and  the  example  of  the  righteous  man  is  felt  intui- 
tively, but  not  analysed  at  all :  both  sides  of  the  sim- 
ilarity consist  of  concrete  experience,  of  experience 
in  the  round,  as  it  were.  In  the  other  case  the  con- 
crete fact  of  the  candle  has  disappeared  and  given 
place  to  a  single  attribute,  the  light.  This  attribute 
leads  directly  to  further  consequences ;  following  this 
attribute,  light,  one  is  pointed  on  to  the  way  in  which 
Christ  has  in  like  manner  altered  the  world  by  his 
coming;  and  this  aspect  of  his  manifestation  is  in 
part  explained  and  made  clearer  by  the  train  of 
thought.  To  put  the  matter  in  another  way,  in  the 
parable  the  similarity  between  diverse  things  which  is 
»  John  xii.  35-36. 


202  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  substance  of  most  thought  is  assumed  as  a  simple 
and  obvious  fact  ]  there,  is  no  effort  to  analyse  it,  to 
see  the  nature  of  the  likeness,  no  effort  to  develop  it 
in  order  to  see  what  further  consequences  are  in- 
volved in  the  likeness.  In  the  symbolic  use  of  St. 
John,  on  the  other  hand,  the  points  of  likeness  seem 
to  be  detached  from  the  total  sensation  and  stated  as 
a  single  attribute;  on  this  attribute  the  attention  is 
then  fixed,  so  that  the  resemblance  is  seen  to  go 
deeper  and  farther.  The  latter  represents,  then,  a 
more  developed  form  of  thought,  one  which  sees  more 
points  differentiated  in  its  objects,  as  it  were,  more 
perspective,  more  consequences  in  them.  And  get- 
ting a  glimpse  of  these  further  resemblances  and  con- 
sequences it  comes  to  a  more  or  less  vague  feeling  of 
the  nature  of  the  similarity  which  binds  the  facts  to- 
gether, and  a  more  or  less  vague  feeling  of  the 
further  results  which  follow  on  that  special  nature. 
It  differs  from  the  older,  Oriental  mode  of  thought 
in  that  it  has  a  partial  idea  of  the  nature  of  the 
single  character  which  it  analyses  out,  and  a  partially 
defined  idea  of  the  directions  in  which  it  leads.  It 
differs  from  modern,  Western  thought  in  that  neither 
the  exact  nature  of  the  attribute  nor  the  exact  nature 
of  its  consequences  is  reached.  If  we  should  recur  to 
Socrates's  search  for  the  essential  nature  of  justice 
we  should  see  how  deeply  this  mystical  thought  dif- 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      203 

fers  from  really  abstract  reasoning.  It  may  be  con- 
ceived as  lying  half-way,  as  it  were,  between  the 
Oriental,  purely  intuitive  habit  of  thought  and  the 
modern,  thoroughly  analytical.  It  is  by  no  means 
isolated:  St.  Paul's  contemporary,  Philo  Judseus, 
carried  the  mysticism  to  fantastic  results;  and  some 
of  the  works  of  Plato  and  even  of  Aristotle  run  off 
into  such  figurative  forms  as  to  be  hardly  distinguish- 
able from  myths  or  allegories.  Such  cases  probably 
mean  that  intuition  ran  away  from  reasoning,  and 
gave  glimpses  of  deep  underlying  truths  too  vast  or 
too  nebulous  to  be  seized  and  made  definite  by  the  an- 
alytic reason. 

The  kind  of  scientific  man  whose  chief  boast  is 
his  hard-headedness  would  probably  compare  mysti- 
cism and  all  its  works  to  the  rumored  feat  of  the 
Hindoo  magicians,  who,  we  are  told,  standing  on  the 
bare  and  packed  earth  of  a  market  place  throw  an  end 
of  rope  into  the  air,  and  then  climbing  up  it  hand 
over  hand  disappear  into  the  void  of  heaven :  so  mys- 
ticism, starting  from  the  similitudes  of  real  things, 
in  a  moment  eludes  our  grasp  and  loses  itself  in 
clouds  where  it  is  vain  to  try  to  follow  it.  The  figure 
would  have  much  truth,  especially  if  we  recognize 
its  inadequacy  to  suggest  the  whole  truth.  The  ap- 
peal of  mysticism  is  of  necessity  limited,  and  for  most 
of  us  very  narrowly  so;  in  this  respect,  as  I  shall 


204  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

point  out  in  the  chapter  on  the  apocalypses,  it  is  like 
the  appeal  of  music.  Sooner  or  later  it  loses  itself  in 
a  region  which  is  for  almost  everyone  an  unprofit- 
able void.  On  the  other  hand,  as  Professor  James 
has  shown  in  his  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, 
the  hither  borders  of  this  region  are  also  those  of 
all  religious  and  spiritual  experience ;  and  what  value 
mysticism  has  it  derives  from  its  ability  to  lift  the 
soul  to  the  certitude  of  such  experiences.  The  capac- 
ity of  men  for  such  spiritual  experiences  differs ;  and 
in  consequence  each  one  of  us  sets  a  different  esti- 
mate on  the  profitableness  of  mysticism.  But  these 
writings  of  the  New  Testament  will  be  a  witness,  ex- 
cept to  the  kind  of  man  of  science  who  swallows  his 
Herbert  Spencer  whole,  that  the  things  of  the  spirit 
lie  part  way  at  any  rate  within  the  confines  of  another 
order  of  experience. 

Coming  back  to  a  somewhat  more  sober  way  of 
looking  at  the  subject,  and  considering  it  from  the 
side  of  the  style,  we  can  see  that  the  chief  distinc- 
tion between  this  mystical  reason  and  the  modern 
analytical  reasoning  is  that  in  the  former  there 
is  a  large  and  inseparable  element  of  the  emotional. 
Psychologists  to-day,  as  we  have  seen,  hold  that 
feeling  is  inseparable  from  the  sensations;  and  it  is 
a  truth  in  literature  that  the  appeal  to  the  emotions 
must  be  made  through  the  concrete.    It  is  only  as  the 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      205 

abstract  approaches  the  rarefaction  of  the  mathemat- 
ical or  of  pure  logic  that  all  element  of  the  emotional 
is  stripped  away.  Xow  since  the  mystical  reasoning 
is  so  largely  figurative,  it  is  couched  in  terms  of  the 
concrete,  and  therefore  retains  the  strong  emotional 
coloring  which  goes  with  the  concrete.  In  the  end  it 
is  still  bound  to  terms  which  are  more  than  half  con- 
stituted of  the  non-rational  element  of  feeling.  In 
the  figure  of  the  light  which  is  so  dear  to  the  author 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  one  feels  that  the  connotation  of 
the  figure, — all  the  cloud  of  feelings  and  associations 
which  throng  about  our  idea  of  light, — is  more  im- 
portant than  the  actual  denotation.  If  the  idea  were 
made  really  abstract  its  value  and  stimulating  power 
would  fade  away.  Mysticism  is  like  poetry  in  that 
without  emotion  it  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
Here  again,  then,  we  get  back  to  the  same  truth 
which  lies  behind  the  wisdom  books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament: from  the  point  of  view  of  literature  power 
lies  in  the  capacity  of  the  written  word  to  stir  up 
feeling.  Therefore  in  literature  Bacon's  apothegm, 
"  Dry  light  is  ever  the  best,"  has  no  place.  The 
sensations  and  emotions  of  man,  which  do  not  change 
with  the  ages,  are  the  permanent  foundation  of  the 
mental  life:  the  glory  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  and 
the  stars  affects  us  in  the  same  way  that  it  did  St. 
Paul;  and  we  to-day  at  the  call  of  his  words  rise 


206  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

on  similar  uprushes  of  feeling  to  a  region  above  the 
dust  and  turmoil  of  the  present  life.  He  had  the 
genius  for  expressing  these  inexpressible  thoughts; 
and  he  does  so  now  by  the  pregnant  figure  of  the  sow- 
ing of  the  grain,  now  by  a  pure  ejaculation  of  the 
triumph  of  the  soul  over  matter,  as  in  the  cry,  "  O 
death,  where  is  thy  sting?  0  grave,  where  is  thy 
victory  ? " 

We  can  go  a  step  farther,  I  think,  without  step- 
ping out  of  a  strictly  literary  study  of  these  great 
masterpieces  of  expression  into  the  field  of  theology ; 
we  can  say  that  St.  Paul  was  compelled  to  be  partly 
mystical  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have  used  the  word 
here.  If  the  message  which  was  burned  into  his  soul 
on  the  road  to  Damascus  was  of  eternal  significance, 
if  it  concerned  the  inscrutable  things  of  God,  it  could 
not  be  reduced  to  the  definiteness  which  some  philos- 
ophers vainly  hope  to  reach.  At  best  man  can  attain 
only  to  glimpses  of  such  truths,  and  then  necessarily 
by  intuition,  not  by  reasoning;  and  such  glimpses  of 
supernatural  truths. can  be  communicated  to  other 
men  through  words  only  by  such  nobly  figurative 
language  as  St.  Paul  had  the  genius  to  use:  for  by 
such  language  alone  can  the  imagination  be  set  soar- 
ing. The  history  of  all  literature  will  bear  out  the 
conclusion  that  follows  from  the  study  of  the  Bible, 
its  greatest  monument  in  English,  that  reasoning  is 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT      207 

here  impotent.  It  is  only  by  virtue  of  the  deep  in- 
fusion of  feeling  which  always  goes  with  knowledge 
attained  by  intuition  that  the  human  mind  can  soar 
to  the  eternal  and  the  infinite.  St.  Paul  himself  has 
said  it  once  for  all :  "  Now  we  see  as  in  a  glass, 
darkly " :  and  these  shadowy  glimpses  of  the  tran- 
scendent realities  can  be  brought  within  the  powers  of 
language  only  by  the  adumbrations  and  kindling  fig- 
ures of  a  half-poetic  speech. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE    PROPHECY 


We  have  seen  in  discussing  the  other  forms  of 
the  Biblical  literature  that  the  narrative,  except  for 
a  small  portion  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  is  ex- 
tremely simple  in  style,  and  that  it  has  neither  com- 
plications nor  subtleties  of  construction;  that  the  po- 
etry, with  an  equal  simplicity,  sets  forth  directly, 
through  powerful  and  concrete  imagery,  the  funda- 
mental and  lasting  emotions  of  mankind,  but  that, 
like  the  narrative,  it  never  arrived  at  the  point  of 
creating  characters  and  situations;  that  the  wisdom 
literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  limited  like  the  nar- 
rative and  the  poetry  by  the  nature  of  the  Hebrew 
language,  never  arrived  at  reasoning  in  the  modern 
sense,  but  stopped  content  with  the  truths  which  can 
be  reached  by  intuition:  and  that  it  is  not  until  we 
reach  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul 
that  we  pass  over  to  the  mental  life  of  the  modern 

208 


THE  PROPHECY  209 

world.  Even  here,  however,  we  found  that  the  most 
stirring  passages  revert  to  intuition,  since  they  deal 
with  matters  where  man's  reason  flags  helpless.  With 
the  prophecy  we  come  back  to  the  Old  Testament, 
and  to  a  form  which  as  literature  is  the  most  typically 
and  distinctively  Biblical  of  all. 

Of  all  the  writings  in  the  English  Bible  these 
oracles  of  the  prophets  are  the  most  foreign  and  the 
least  like  anything  that  we  have  in  modern  litera- 
ture :  as  they  appear  here  they  belong  to  a  vanished 
past.  Men  are  still  born  who  have  glimpses  of  the 
everlasting  verities  to  communicate  to  other  men ;  but 
they  deliver  them  in  forms  wholly  different.  The 
prophet  of  the  Old  Testament  was  at  once  preacher 
and  statesman,  seer  of  visions  and  guide  in  the  affairs 
of  the  nation,  reformer  of  religion,  moralist,  and 
poet.  The  prophecies  contain  deliverances  on  all  sub- 
jects, from  new  revelations  of  the  nature  of  Jehovah 
to  the  practical  questions  of  tithes  or  the  keeping  of 
the  Sabbath.  Yet  through  them  all,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  normal  form  is  poetical,  and  they  all  show  the 
parallelism  of  the  Hebrew  poetry.  At  the  very  be- 
ginning of  Isaiah  there  is  a  good  example: 

Hear,  O  heavens;  and  give  ear,  O  earth:  for  the 
Lord  hath  spoken,  I  have  nourished  and  brought 
up  children,  and  they  have  rebelled  against 
me. 


210  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

The  ox  knoweth  his  master,  and  the  ass  his 
master's  crib:  but  Israel  doth  not  know,  my  people 
doth  not  consider. 

Ah  sinful  nation,  a  people  laden  with  iniquity, 
a  seed  of  evildoers,  children  that  are  corrupters: 
they  have  forsaken  the  Lord,  they  have  provoked 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel  unto  anger,  they  are  gone 
away  backward. ^ 

A  statesman  nowadays  in  public  utterances  betakes 
himself  to  extended  and  orderly  exposition:  the 
statesman-prophets  of  Israel  often  saw  their  messages 
as  a  vision,  and  they  summed  up  the  pith  of  the  sit- 
uation in  a  brief  oracle  in  highly  poetic  form.  Now- 
adays poets  are  men  apart  from  the  multitude,  whose 
writings  rarely  touch  public  opinion.  To  understand 
the  position  of  Amos  and  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  we 
must  think  of  them  as  poets  whose  words  had  practi- 
cal force  on  the  life  of  their  times,  whose  utterances 
swayed  public  opinion,  and  guided  the  action  of 
kings. 

The  prophets  themselves  as  they  appear  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  Old  Testament  were  of  the  greatest 
variety  of  character.  The  highest  type  were  farsee- 
ing  statesmen ;  yet  they  passed  under  the  same  name 
as  the  '^  sons  of  prophets ''  who  were  sometimes,  so 
far  as  we  can  tell,  not  very  different  from  the  der- 
» Isa.  i.  2-4. 


THE  PROPHECY  211 

vishes  of  to-day.     An  incident  in  the  story  of  Saul 
shows  the  range  of  the  word  in  these  ancient  times: 

And  he  went  thither  to  Naioth  in  Ramah:  and 
the  Spirit  of  God  was  upon  him  also,  and  he  went 
on,  and  prophesied,  until  he  came  to  Naioth  in 
Ramah. 

And  he  stripped  off  his  clothes  also,  and  prophe- 
sied before  Samuel  in  like  manner,  and  lay  down 
naked  all  that  day  and  all  that  night.  Wherefore 
they  say,  Is  Saul  also  among  the  prophets?* 

This  is  a  long  way  from  the  dignity  of  Isaiah  before 
Hezekiah.  We  know  directly  very  little  about  the 
prophets ;  but  it  is  significant  that  the  same  word  is 
used  for  so  dervish-like  an  action  as  this  and  for  the 
lofty  utterances  of  the  greatest  statesmen  and  think- 
ers of  Israel.  It  seems  to  have  implied  some  sort  of 
abnormal  or  supernormal  state  of  mind.  The  phrase 
which  the  prophets  use  themselves  is  perhaps  as  defi- 
nite a  description  of  this  state  of  mind  as  we  can  get : 
"  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  upon  me."  I  do  not 
know  that  modern  psychology  adds  much  by  explain- 
ing that  the  message  must  have  surged  up  from  the 
subliminal  portion  of  the  consciousness,  and  that  it 
took  the  form  of  automatic  speech.  Such  a  descrip- 
tion only  says  in  a  more  elaborate  way  that  the  mes- 
»  1  Sam.  xix.  23-24. 


212  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

sage  came  to  the  prophet  through  no  volition  of  his 
own,  and  that  in  the  moulding  of  the  message  his  con- 
scious thought  played  no  part.  In  the  New  Testa- 
ment the  visions  of  St.  Paul  belong  to  the  same  class 
of  phenomena : 

It  is  not  expedient  for  me  doubtless  to  glory.  I 
will  come  to  visions  and  revelations  of  the  Lord. 

I  knew  a  man  in  Christ  above  fourteen  years  ago, 
(whether  in  the  body,  I  cannot  tell;  or  whether  out 
of  the  body,  I  cannot  tell:  God  knoweth;)  such  an 
one  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven. 

And  I  knew  such  a  man,  (whether  in  the  body, 
or  out  of  the  body,  I  cannot  tell:  God  knoweth;) 

How  that  he  was  caught  up  into  paradise,  and 
heard  unspeakable  words,  which  it  is  not  lawful  for 
a  man  to  utter.* 

We  may  suppose  that  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment received  their  messages  in  a  like  state  of  exal- 
tation, when  the  depths  of  the  soul  overflowed  the 
ordinary  bounds  of  consciousness  and  floated  them 
into  a  higher  region  of  illumination. 

We  have  seen  that  the  wisdom  of  the  Hebrews 
never  passed  beyond  the  stage  of  intuition  to  that 
of  abstract  reasoning.  This  prophecy  is  therefore 
an  even  more  typical  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
literature,  since  here  the  conscious  effort  of  the 
prophet  contributed  nothing.  In  the  prophecies  we 
1  2  Cor.  xii.  1-4. 


THE  PROPHECY  213 

meet  a  form  of  literature  which  has  no  kindred  in 
our  modern  world.  The  self-induced  trances  of  the 
dervishes  are  modern  examples  of  a  phenomenon 
which  has  come  down  unchanged  from  a  remote  an- 
tiquity in  the  East;  and  though  such  inarticulate 
trances  are  a  long  way  from  the  inspired  utterances 
with  which  we  are  dealing,  they  help  us  to  understand 
the  broken  utterance  and  the  incoherence  of  thought 
in  a  prophet  like  Hosea.  JSTowadays  and  in  our  West- 
ern world  we  have  an  instinctive  distrust  of  a  man 
whose  mental  equilibrium  is  uncertain.  We  forget 
too  much  perhaps  that  such  great  geniuses  of  our 
modern  world  as  Caesar  and  Xapoleon  I  were  subject 
to  emotional  upsets  of  a  form  which  doctors  describe 
as  epileptoid.  And  in  the  Xew  Testament  the  writ- 
ings of  St.  Paul,  which  seem  so  near  our  own  day, 
are  the  work  of  a  man  who,  as  we  have  just  seen  by 
his  own  testimony,  was  subject  to  trances.  Like  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  he  saw  visions  and 
was  wrapt  out  of  himself  into  a  state  in  which  his 
mind  was  opened  wide  to  the  messages  from  the  un- 
seen world.  In  this  matter  of  the  prophecy  he  may 
furnish  for  us  the  connecting  link  between  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  Xew. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
though  the  prophecy  is  the  most  Oriental  and  foreign 
of  all  the  forms  of  literature  with  which  we  deal, 


214  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

yet  it  is  the  portion  of  the  literature  through  which 
the  Jewish  nation  had  its  strongest  influence  on  the 
thought  of  the  world.  Through  the  prophets  were 
delivered  the  great  messages  by  which  this  small  and 
forlorn  nation  changed  the  course  of  civilization. 
Amos  and  Hosea  and  Isaiah  first  proclaimed  the  doc- 
trine that  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel,  Was  the  God 
who  ruled  all  the  nations  of  the  earth ;  and  two  centu- 
ries later  by  a  direct  and  necessary  development  of 
this  teaching,  the  great  unknov^na  prophet  whom  we 
may  call  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  advancing  to  a 
higher  plane  of  truth,  proclaimed  Jehovah  as  the  one 
God,  who  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  beside 
whom  the  gods  of  the  heathen  were  silly  stocks  and 
stones.  And  in  the  apocalypse,  which  developed  nat- 
urally out  of  the  prophecy,  the  Jews  advanced  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  future  life  and  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  Thus  in  these  forms  which  we  are  consider- 
ing in  this  chapter  we  are  dealing  with  the  form  of 
utterance  in  which  more  than  in  any  other  was 
uttered  forth  the  heart  and  the  soul  of  the  Jewish 
race. 

II 

The  prophecy  is,  however,  harder  to  study  than 
any  other  portion  of  the  Bible  since  as  it  stands  in  our 
Bible  it  is  wholly  disordered.    The  Jews  of  the  Exile 


THE  PROPHECY  215 

and  of  the  next  centuries  gathered  the  fragments  of 
the  prophecy  which  remained  to  them  into  four  great 
books,  which  came  to  have  the  names  Isaiah,  Jere- 
miah, Ezehiel,  and  the  Twelve.  Of  these  Ezehiel  is 
the  only  book  which  is  confined  to  the  prophecies  of  a 
single  prophet.  Isaiah  is  almost  more  miscellaneous 
in  contents  than  is  the  book  of  the  Twelve ;  into  it 
were  gathered  fragments  of  prophecy  and  prophetic 
writing  which  dated  from  a  generation  before  Isaiah, 
before  750  b.c.^  to  the  end  of  the  Persian  period 
and  the  beginning  of  the  Greek,  about  300  b.c.  :  and 
these  are  all  thrown  together  without  regard  to 
chronology  or  authorship.  Any  thorough  under- 
standing of  the  books  of  the  prophets  is  therefore  de- 
pendent on  a  careful  study  of  them  with  the  help 
of  some  manual  of  Biblical  introduction.  In  this 
way  only  can  one  sort  out  the  different  fragments 
and  arrange  them  in  something  like  a  chronological 
order.  The  study  is  worth  the  effort,  for  the  oracles 
of  these  ancient  prophets  have  a  rugged  grandeur 
and  elevation  which  set  them  apart  as  almost  the 
highest  peak  in  all  the  writings  of  men;  and  the  in- 
dividual prophets  have  characteristics  which  can  only 
be  brought  out  by  recognizing  the  period  from  which 
their  utterances  spring.  At  the  same  time  there  is 
no  more  inspiring  passage  in  all  history  than  the  way 
in  which  the  prophets  of  this  small  people,  a  helpless 


216  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

buffer  state  between  the  great  empires  of  the  l^ile  and 
the  Euphrates,  at  each  crisis  in  their  history  rose  tri- 
umphant above  the  limitations  of  temporal  weakness 
and  distress.  In  such  a  study  as  this,  however,  I 
must  assume  the  fruits  of  this  study  and  discuss  only 
the  larger  outlines  of  its  results. 

With  the  chronological  order  of  the  prophecies 
once  restored,  one  can  see  a  regular  development  of 
the  literary  forms  which  is  curiously  analogous  to 
that  of  other  literatures.  It  seems  to  be  a  general 
law  that  any  school  of  literature  rises  to  its  climax 
when  the  power  of  thought  and  the  power  of  feeling 
are  justly  balanced,  when  the  writer  has  a  clear  and 
firm  perception  of  facts  and  their  meaning,  and  at 
the  same  time  when  this  perception  of  fact  is  fired  and 
fused  by  the  heat  of  feeling  and  imagination;  when 
the  intellectual  faculties,  cooler  and  more  controlled, 
study  the  facts  and  formulate  their  meaning,  and  the 
emotional  faculties,  warmer  and  more  impulsive,  add 
momentum  and  intense  feeling  to  this  understanding 
and  by  the  spontaneous  and  unforeseen  leap  of  in- 
tuition rise  to  the  apprehension  of  new  truths  and  to 
the  feeling  for  overtones  of  meaning  often  only  im- 
perfectly articulate.  As  such  a  school  breaks  up, 
these  two  forces  tend  to  split  apart  and  to  produce 
two  schools,  in  one  of  which  the  intellectual  faculties 
predominate  and  in  the  other  the  emotional.     The 


THE  PROPHECY  217 

Shakspere  period  is  the  most  notable  example  in  Eng- 
lish literature.     Shakspere  beyond  any  other  writer 
in  English  joined  to  the  grasp  on  the  solid  and  con- 
crete facts  of  life  and  the  keenest  and  most  penetrat- 
ing perception  of  their  meaning  a  power  of  feeling 
and  a  charm  of  form  which  fused  and  transfigured 
the  facts  into  a  stream  of  living  beauty.    It  is  hard  to 
say  whether  one  thinks  first  of  the  firm  and  definite 
outline  of  his  characters  or  of  the  glowing  beauty  of 
his  poetry  and  its  rich  halo  of  suggestiveness.     In 
the  generation  succeeding  him  these  two  constituents 
of  the  poetic  power  fall  apart.     On  the  one  hand 
there  is  the  school  of  Drayton,  of  Brown,  of  Wither 
and  the  Fletchers,  and  the  other  mellifluous  poets  of 
the  post-Elizabethan  time,  whose  verse  has  the  flow- 
ing and  gracious  beauty  that  belongs  to  a  golden  age, 
yet  whose  thought  is  so  thin  and  reflected  as  to  leave 
little   lasting   impression    on    one's   mind.     On   the 
other  hand  there  is  the  school  of  Donne  and  the  so- 
called  metaphysicians,  whose  intensity  of  thought  lost 
itself  in  subtle  intricacies  and  involution  and  who 
lacked  the  power  of  clothing  their  thought  with  clear 
and  beautiful  words.    A  like  differentiation  might  be 
made  out  for  the  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century,  start- 
ing with  the  great  school  of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge, 
Shelley,  Keats,  and  Byron,  which  splits  in  our  own 
time  into  the  two  tendencies  shown  by  Tennyson  and 


218  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Browning,  of  flowing  beauty  of  form  on  the  one  hand, 
and  rugged  and  whimsical  intricacy  of  thought  on  the 
other.  We  are  too  near  these  latter  poets  to  work  out 
the  parallel  in  detail ;  but  the  history  of  English  lit- 
erature clearly  establishes  the  law.  In  a  school  of 
poetry  the  decay  and  breaking  up  come  as  the  forces 
of  thought  and  of  feeling  separate  from  each  other. 

A  development  closely  akin  to  this  appears  in  the 
external  form  of  these  books  of  the  prophecy.  The 
first  great  prophets  show  the  penetrating  and  states- 
manlike understanding  of  fact  fused  by  the  intensity 
of  their  emotion  and  transfigured  to  words  of  glowing 
fire.  Two  hundred  years  later,  in  the  prophets  of  the 
time  of  the  Exile  one  finds  the  firm  and  earnest  per- 
ception of  fact  on  the  one  hand  in  Ezekiel,  Haggai 
and  Malachi,  and  on  the  other  the  soaring  imag- 
ination and  emotion  of  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  and 
the  mystical  visions  of  Zechariah;  but  by  this  time 
we  find  no  example  of  the  two  forces  fused  into  one. 

This  change  in  the  outward  manifestation  of  the 
gift  I  will  set  forth  at  some  little  length,  then  I  will 
return  to  the  general  characteristics  of  all  the  proph- 
ets and  discuss  what  seems  to  be  the  essence  of  their 
character  in  our  literature.  In  the  next  chapter  we 
shall  see  how  the  prophecy  developed  naturally  into 
another  form  of  literature,  known  as  the  apocalypse, 
which  gave  to  the  New  Testament  its  climax  in  Rev- 


THE  PROPHECY  219 

elation.  It  is  significant  of  the  character  of  all  the 
literature  we  are  studying  that  the  element  of  the 
prophecy  which  thus  rose  up  into  new  life  is  that 
which  embodies  emotion  and  intuition,  and  that  as  it 
soared  to  its  highest  reaches,  more  and  more  it  cut 
loose  from  the  trammels  of  fact  and  the  limitations 
of  time  and  space. 

The  writings  of  the  prophets  as  we  have  them  be- 
gin with  Amos,  Hosea,  and  Isaiah,  in  the  middle  of 
the  eighth  century  b.c.^  the  time  when  under  Jero- 
boam II  of  Northern  Israel  and  Azariah  of  Judah, 
the  two  little  kingdoms  flickered  up  into  a  final 
period  of  prosperity  and  apparent  independence  be- 
fore the  great  power  of  the  Euphrates  aroused  itself 
and  extended  its  borders  once  more  to  meet  those  of 
Egypt.  Of  these  we  may  take  the  prophecies  of 
Amos  and  Isaiah  as  examples  of  the  prophecy  at  its 
strongest  and  noblest. 

The  first  appearance  of  Amos,  a  rough  herdsman 
from  the  hills  of  Judah,  before  the  wealthy  and  cul- 
tivated nobles  of  Samaria,  men  grown  fat  with  riches 
and  luxury,  is  a  most  dramatic  incident.  He  begins 
with  a  series  of  denunciations  against  their  heredi- 
tary enemies : 

Thus  saith  the  Lord;  For  three  transgressions 
of  Damascus,  and  for  four,  I  will  not  turn  away 
the    punishment     thereof  ;     because    they    have 


220  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

threshed  Gilead  with  threshing  instruments  of 
iron: 

But  I  will  send  a  fire  into  the  house  of  Hazael, 
which  shall  devour  the  palaces  of  Ben-hadad. 

I  will  break  also  the  bar  of  Damascus,  and  cut 
off  the  inhabitant  from  the  plain  of  Aven,  and 
him  that  holdeth  the  sceptre  from  the  house  of 
Eden:  and  the  people  of  Syria  shall  go  into  cap- 
tivity unto  Kir,  saith  the  Lord.^ 

Then  he  follows  with  denunciations  of  Gaza  and  Ash- 
dod,  of  Tyrus,  of  Edom  because  "  he  did  pursue  his 
brother  with  the  sword,  and  did  cast  off  all  pity,  and 
his  anger  did  tear  perpetually,  and  he  kept  his  wrath 
for  ever  ",  of  Ammon,  and  of  Moab,  *^  because  he 
burned  the  bones  of  the  king  of  Edom  into  lime." 
Then  when  his  hearers  are  lulled  by  these  satisfying 
denunciations  of  their  enemies,  suddenly  and  with- 
out warning  he  turns  on  them : 

Thus  saith  the  Lord;  For  three  transgressions 
of  Israel,  and  for  four,  I  will  not  turn  away  the 
punishment  thereof;  because  they  sold  the  right- 
eous for  silver,  and  the  poor  for  a  pair  of  shoes; 

That  pant  after  the  dust  of  the  earth  on  the 
head  of  the  poor,  and  turn  aside  the  way  of  the 
meek: 

And   they  lay   themselves  down  upon   clothes 
laid  to  pledge  by  every  altar,  and  they  drink  the 
*  Amos  i.  3-5. 


THE   PROPHECY  221 

wine  of   the  condemned  in    the  house   of    their 
god.i 

Here  we  have  the  prophecy  at  its  best ;  the  sharp  per- 
ception of  the  concrete  facts  is  fused  by  imagination 
into  a  message  of  the  deeper  meaning  which  under- 
lies it.  Amos  always  shows  this  combination:  both 
his  descriptions  of  the  oppressive  luxury  of  the 
nobles  and  the  imagery  in  which  he  denounces  the 
punishment  of  them  are  extraordinarily  vivid : 

Ye  that  put  far  away  the  evil  day,  and  cause  the 
seat  of  violence  to  come  near; 

That  lie  upon  beds  of  ivory,  and  stretch  them- 
selves upon  their  couches,  and  eat  the  lambs  out 
of  the  flock,  and  the  calves  out  of  the  midst  of  the 
stall; 

That  chant  to  the  sound  of  the  viol,  and  invent 
to  themselves  instruments  of  music,  like  David; 

That  drink  wine  in  bowls,  and  anoint  themselves 
with  the  chief  ointments;  but  they  are  not  grieved 
for  the  affliction  of  Joseph.^ 

And  for  the  punishment: 

And  I  also  have  given  you  cleanness  of  teeth  in 
all  your  cities,  and  want  of  bread  in  all  your  places: 
yet  have  ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith  the  Lord. 

And  also  I  have  withholden  the  rain  from  you, 
when  there  were  yet  three  months  to  the  harvest: 
and  I  caused  it  to  rain  upon  one  city,  and  caused 

1  Amos  ii.  6-8.  ^  Ibid.,  vi.  3-6. 


222  THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE 

it  not  to  rain  upon  another  city:  one  piece  was 
rained  upon,  and  the  piece  whereupon  it  rained 
not  withered. 

So  two  or  three  cities  wandered  unto  one  city, 
to  drink  water;  but  they  were  not  satisfied:  yet 
have  ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith  the  Lord.^ 

And  again: 

Thus  saith  the  Lord;  As  the  shepherd  taketh 
out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Hon  two  legs,  or  a  piece 
of  an  ear;  so  shall  the  children  of  Israel  be  taken 
out  that  dwell  in  Samaria  in  the  corner  Of  a  bed, 
and  in  Damascus  in  a  couch. 

Hear  ye,  and  testify  in  the  house  of  Jacob, 
saith  the  Lord  God,  the  God  of  hosts, 

That  in  the  day  that  I  shall  visit  the  transgres- 
sions of  Israel  upon  him  I  will  also  visit  the  altars 
of  Beth-el :  and  the  horns  of  the  altar  shall  be  cut 
off,  and  fall  to  the  ground. 

And  I  will  smite  the  winter  house  with  the 
summer  house ;  and  the  houses  of  ivory  shall  perish, 
and  the  great  houses  shall  have  an  end,  saith  the 
Lord.2 

In  all  his  declaration  of  the  new  and  unwelcome 
truth,  that  Jehovah  would  punish  his  chosen  people 
for  their  unrighteousness  as  well  as  reward  them  for 
their  good  deeds,  Amos  has  the  sharpest  and  strong- 
est sense  of  the  actual  evil  for  which  the  punishment 
^  Amos  iv.  6-8.  ^  ibj^.,  Hi.  12-15. 


THE  PROPHECY  223 

would  come  and  the  imagination  and  feeling  which 
clothed  those  facts  with  spiritual  power. 

So  in  the  same  way  with  Isaiah,  a  younger  and 
greater  contemporary  of  Amos.  He  is  the  most 
notable  of  all  the  prophets,  for  he  more  than  any 
of  them  shows  this  complete  balance  of  the  unfail- 
ing grasp  of  fact  and  the  power  of  the  imagination 
which  fuses  the  fact  into  an  expression  of  the  higher 
truths  which  lie  behind.  In  all  his  prophecies  one 
feels  the  statesmanship  of  a  man  who,  looking  be- 
yond the  mountains  of  Judah  to  the  movements  of 
the  great  world  outside,  recognized  that  Assyria  was 
irresistible  and  that  the  only  hope  for  Judah  was 
to  bow  before  the  storm  and  trust  in  the  Lord  God. 
Moreover,  one  finds  in  Isaiah's  prophecies  what  one 
does  not  find  in  those  of  the  other  prophets,  a  firm 
confidence  that  they  will  have  weight:  one  recog- 
nizes that  here  is  a  man  who  impressed  his  own  high 
and  inspired  purpose  on  the  actions  of  weak  and  un- 
willing kings. 

What  I  wish  to  emphasize  now,  however,  is  the 
solid  and  vivid  appreciation  of  fact  and  the  high 
imagination  of  his  messages.  Of  the  grasp  of  fact 
one  can  find  many  instances.  His  warning  to  Heze- 
kiah  not  to  intrigue  with  Egypt,  not  only  shows  the 
statesman's  insight  into  the  situation,  but  recreates 
the  situation  for  us: 


224  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Woe  to  the  rebellious  children,  saith  the  Lord, 
that  take  counsel,  but  not  of  me;  and  that  cover 
with  a  covering,  but  not  of  my  Spirit,  that  they 
may  add  sin  to  sin: 

That  walk  to  go  down  into  Egypt,  and  have  not 
asked  at  my  mouth;  to  strengthen  themselves  in 
the  strength  of  Pharaoh,  and  to  trust  in  the  shadow 
of  Egypt! 

Therefore  shall  the  strength  of  Pharaoh  be  your 
shame,  and  the  trust  in  the  shadow  of  Egypt  your 
confusion. 

For  his  princes  were  at  Zoan,  and  his  ambas- 
sadors came  to  Hanes. 

They  were  all  ashamed  of  a  people  that  could  not 
profit  them,  nor  be  an  help  nor  profit,  but  a  shame, 
and  also  a  reproach. 

The  burden  of  the  beasts  of  the  south:  into  the 
land  of  trouble  and  anguish,  from  whence  come 
the  young  and  old  lion,  the  viper  and  fiery  flying 
serpent,  they  will  carry  their  riches  upon  the 
shoulders  of  young  asses,  and  their  treasures  upon 
the  bunches  of  camels,  to  a  people  that  shall  not 
profit  them. 

For  the  Egyptians  shall  help  in  vain,  and  to  no 
purpose:  therefore,  have  I  cried  concerning  this. 
Their  strength  is  to  sit  still. ^ 

And  he  describes  the  state  of  Judah  as  follows: 

Your  country  is  desolate,  your  cities  are  burned 
with  fire:  your  land,  strangers  devour  it  in  your 

*  Isa.  XXX.  1-7. 


THE  PROPHECY  225 

presence,  and  it  is  desolate,  as  overthrown  by 
strangers. 

And  the  daughter  of  Zion  is  left  as  a  cottage  in 
a  vineyard,  as  a  lodge  in  a  garden  of  cucumbers, 
as  a  besieged  city.^ 

Indeed,  all  the  great  prophets  of  the  earlier  time 
described  the  conditions  under  which  they  lived  so 
definitely  that  modern  historians  find  in  their  utter- 
ances much  of  the  material  from  which  to  recon- 
struct the  history  of  the  period. 

The  imagery  of  Isaiah's  prophecies  shows  this 
same  vivid  consciousness  of  actual  fact.  Before  the 
war  against  Pekah  and  Kezin  he  declares: 

And  in  that  day  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  the 
glory  of  Jacob  shall  be  made  thin,  and  the  fatness 
of  his  flesh  shall  wax  lean. 

And  it  shall  be  as  when  the  harvestman  gathereth 
the  corn,  and  reapeth  the  ears  with  his  arm;  and 
it  shall  be  as  he  that  gathereth  ears  in  the  valley  of 
Rephaim. 

Yet  gleaning  grapes  shall  be  left  in  it,  as  the 
shaking  of  an  olive  tree,  two  or  three  berries  in  the 
top  of  the  uppermost  bough,  four  or  five  in  the 
outmost  fruitful  branches  thereof,  saith  the  Lord 
God  of  Israel.^ 

When  Judah  is  threatened  by  Assyria,  he  declares: 
And  my  hand  hath  found  as  a  nest  the  riches  of 
the  people:  and  as  one  gathereth  eggs  that  are 
*  Isa.  i.  7-8.  '  Ibid.,  xvii.  4-6. 


226  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

left,  have  I  gathered  all  the  earth;  and  there  was 
none  that  moved  the  wing,  or  opened  the  mouth, 
or  peeped. 

Shall  the  axe  boast  itself  against  him  that  heweth 
therewith?  or  shall  the  saw  magnify  itself  against 
him  that  shaketh  it?  as  if  the  rod  should  shake 
itself  against  them  that  lift  it  up,  or  as  if  the  staff 
should  lift  up  itself,  as  if  it  were  no  wood. 

Therefore  shall  the  Lord,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  send 
among  his  fat  ones  leanness;  and  under  his  glory 
he  shall  kindle  a  burning  like  the  burning  of  a  fire.^ 

And  in  an  undated  prophecy  there  is  the  well-known 
passage : 

Whom  shall  he  teach  knowledge?  and  whom  shall 
he  make  to  understand  doctrine?  them  that  are 
weaned  from  the  milk,  and  drawn  from  the  breasts. 

For  precept  must  be  upon  precept,  precept  upon 
precept;  line  upon  line,  line  upon  line;  here  a  little 
and  there  a  little: 

For  with  stammering  lips  and  another  tongue 
will  he  speak  to  this  people. 

To  whom  he  said.  This  is  the  rest  wherewith  ye 
may  cause  the  weary  to  rest;  and  this  is  the  re- 
freshing: yet  they  would  not  hear. 

But  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  unto  them  precept 
upon  precept,  precept  upon  precept;  line  upon  line, 
line  upon  line;  here  a  little  and  there  a  little;  that 
they  might  go,  and  fall  backward,  and  be  broken, 
and  snared,  and  taken.^ 

^  Isa.  X.  14-16.  2  Ibid.,  xxviii.  9-13. 


THE  PROPHECY  227 

Such  examples  illustrate  the  unfailing  concreteness 
of  Isaiah:  whatever  the  message  which  came  to  him 
to  express  he  had  figures  of  speech  sometimes  of 
almost  startling  homeliness  by  which  to  stamp  it  into 
the  hearts  of  his  people.  Yet  no  matter  how  homely 
the  figure  his  earnestness  and  his  elevation  of 
thought  and  the  power  of  his  message  forestall  any 
effect  of  triviality. 

Even  more  characteristic  of  Isaiah's  style,  how- 
ever, are  the  figures  of  speech  which  he  draws  from 
the  great  forces  of  nature;  and  here  again  the  lan- 
guage is  vividly  concrete: 

Therefore  as  the  fire  devoureth  the  stubble,  and 
the  flame  consumeth  the  chaff,  so  their  root  shall 
be  as  rottenness,  and  their  blossom  shall  go  up  as 
dust:  because  they  have  cast  away  the  law  of  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  and  despised  the  word  of  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel. 

Therefore  is  the  anger  of  the  Lord  kindled 
against  his  people,  and  he  hath  stretched  forth  his 
hand  against  them,  and  hath  smitten  them:  and 
the  hills  did  tremble,  and  their  carcasses  were  torn 
in  the  midst  of  the  streets.  For  all  this  his  anger  is 
not  turned  away,  but  his  hand  is  stretched  out  still. ^ 

Woe  to  the  multitude  of  many  people,  which 
make  a  noise  like  the  noise  of  the  seas;  and  to  the 
rushing  of  nations,  that  make  a  rushing  Uke  the 
rushing  of  mighty  waters  ! 

^  Isa.  V.  24-25. 


228  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

The  nations  shall  rush  like  the  rushing  of  many- 
waters;  but  God  shall  rebuke  them,  and  they  shall 
flee  far  off,  and  shall  be  chased  as  the  chaff  of  the 
mountains  before  the  wind,  and  like  a  rolling  thing 
before  the  whirlwind. 

And  behold  at  eveningtide  trouble;  and  before 
the  morning  he  is  not.  This  is  the  portion  of 
them  that  spoil  us,  and  the  lot  of  them  that  rob 
us.i 

Anyone  can  pile  up  figures  of  speech  drawn  from 
floods  and  fire  and  lightning  and  thunder ;  but  Isaiah 
applied  them  so  that  a  single  phrase  expresses  all 
the  terrors  that  lie  in  these  mighty  forces;  and, 
what  is  more,  he  used  them  in  a  way  which  always 
justified  the  superlative.  In  the  later  writers  who 
filled  in  the  prophetic  books  with  imaginations  of 
their  own  the  effort  to  wield  these  resounding  phrases 
is  painfully  apparent.  But  with  Isaiah  whether  the 
figure  be  homely  or  remote,  it  is  always  concrete, 
and  so  apt  that  each  time  one  comes  back  to  the 
reading  one  is  struck  with  fresh  surprise  at  the 
power.  Always  one  feels  with  Isaiah,  as  with  the 
earlier  poets  of  Israel,  that  he  is  drawing  his  imagery 
from  things  which  he  himself  has  felt  and  seen  and 
heard,  and  not  from  a  store-house  of  inherited  lit- 
erature.   His  speech  springs  from  the  experiences  of 

1  Isa.  xvii.  12-14, 


THE  PROPHECY  229 

his  own  life ;  it  never  suggests  that  its  phrasing  comes 
second  or  third  hand  from  reality.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  the  quality  which  is  even  more 
characteristic  of  Isaiah  than  his  solid  consciousness 
of  fact  is  the  high  moral  and  spiritual  elevation  of 
his  prophecies.  The  keynote  of  his  message  by  some 
shrewd  instinct  of  the  compiler  is  set  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  book: 

Ah  sinful  nation,  a  people  laden  with  iniquity, 
a  seed  of  evil  doers,  children  that  are  corrupters: 
they  have  forsaken  the  Lord,  they  have  provoked 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel  unto  anger,  they  are  gone 
away  backward. 

To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sac- 
rifices unto  me?  saith  the  Lord:  I  am  full. of  the 
burnt  offerings  of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts; 
and  I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks,  or  of 
lambs,  or  of  he  goats. 

When  ye  come  to  appear  before  me,  who  hath 
required  this  at  your  hand,  to  tread  my  courts? 

Bring  no  more  vain  oblations;  incense  is  an 
abomination  unto  me ;  the  new  moons  and  sabbaths, 
the  calling  of  assemblies,  I  cannot  away  with;  it 
is  iniquity,  even  the  solemn  meeting. 

Your  new  moons  and  your  appointed  feasts 
my  soul  hateth :  they  are  a  trouble  unto  me ;  I  am 
weary  to  bear  them. 

^  See  Isa.  xxiv.  16-23;  Jere.  1-li.,  both  very  late  additions  to 
the  prophetical  books. 


230  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And  when  ye  spread  forth  your  hands,  I  will  hide 
mine  eyes  from  you:  yea,  when  ye  make  many 
prayers,  I  will  not  hear:  your  hands  are  full  of  blood. 

Wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put  away  the  evil 
of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes;  cease  to  do 
evil; 

Learn  to  do  well;  seek  judgment,  relieve  the 
oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the 
widow.  ^ 

And  the  essence  of  his  warning  to  Judah  against  the 
power  of  Samaria  and  Damascus  is  the  following 
passage: 

For  the  Lord  spake  thus  to  me  with  a  strong 
hand,  and  instructed  me  that  I  should  not  walk 
in  the  way  of  this  people,  saying, 

Say  ye  not,  A  confederacy,  to  all  them  to  whom 
this  people  shall  say,  A  confederacy;  neither  fear 
ye  their  fear,  nor  be  afraid. 

Sanctify  the  Lord  of  hosts  himself;  and  let  him 
be  your  fear,  and  let  him  be  your  dread. ^ 

This  is  the  lesson  which  gives  grandeur  to  the 
prophecies  of  this  period.  Amos  and  Hosea  had  al- 
ready in  the  generations  before  Isaiah  declared  that 
the  power  of  Jehovah  transcended  the  little  boun- 
daries of  Israel;  Isaiah  reinforced  the  lesson  and 
lifted  it  to  even  a  higher  plane.  Everywhere  his 
understanding  of  the  fate  of  his  people  is  fused  and 
» Isa.  i.  4;  11-17.  *  Ibid.,  viii.  11-13. 


THE  PROPHECY  231 

transfigured  by  his  intense  and  soaring  imagination. 
His  message  was  of  surpassiag  grandeur;  and  he 
clothed  it  with  a  language  marked  by  profusion  and 
splendor  of  imagery,  and  by  compression  and  inten- 
sity of  feeling.  Thus  his  prophecy  everywhere  shows 
the  combination  which  I  have  spoken  of,  the  com- 
bination of  vividness  and  concreteness  of  thought 
and  clear  insight  into  fact,  with  the  burning  and 
inspired  earnestness  of  feeling  which  transmutes  the 
facts  and  endows  them  with  an  instant  and  lasting 
effect  on  the  imagination.  Isaiah,  more  than  any 
other  of  the  prophets,  shows  in  the  highest  degree 
these  two  qualities  and  the  perfect  balance  between 
them. 

Let  us  now,  passing  down  a  century  into  the  bitter 
time  during  which  Judah  followed  the  kingdom  of 
!N'orth  Israel  to  political  extinction,  come  to  the 
utterances  of  Jeremiah,  the  "  weeping  prophet." 
This  very  name  "  weeping  prophet "  indicates  the 
direction  in  which  the  prophetic  literature  is  passing. 
The  emotion  is  already  surging  to  the  front,  though 
with  Jeremiah  not  so  much  so  as  to  obscure  the  sense 
of  fact.  He  describes  the  conditions  of  the  Judah  of 
his  day  as  distinctly  as  does  Isaiah  the  conditions  of 
a  century  before.  One  of  his  prophecies  against  the 
weak  and  silly  kings  of  Judah  in  his  day  may  serve 
as  an  example.    Here  is  that  against  Jehoiakim : 


232  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Woe  unto  him  that  buildeth  his  house  by  un- 
righteousness, and  his  chambers  by  wrong;  that 
useth  his  neighbour's  service  without  wages,  and 
giveth  him  not  for  his  work; 

That  saith,  I  will  build  me  a  wide  house  and 
large  chambers,  and  cutteth  him  out  windows; 
and  it  is  cieled  with  cedar,  and  painted  with  ver- 
milion. 

Shalt  thou  reign,  because  thou  closest  thyself 
in  cedar?  did  not  thy  father  eat  and  drink,  and  do 
judgment  and  justice,  and  then  it  was  well  with 
him? 

He  judged  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  needy ;  then 
it  was  well  with  him;  was  not  this  to  know  me? 
saith  the  Lord. 

But  thine  eyes  and  thine  heart  are  not  but  for 
thy  covetousness,  and  for  to  shed  innocent  blood, 
and  for  oppression,  and  for  violence,  to  do  it. 

Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  concerning  Jehoi- 
akim,  the  son  of  Josiah  king  of  Judah;  They  shall 
not  lament  for  him,  saying,  Ah,  my  brother!  or, 
Ah  sister!  they  shall  not  lament  for  him,  saying, 
Ah,  Lord!  or.  Ah  his  glory! 

He  shall  be  buried  with  the  burial  of  an  ass,  drawn 
and  cast  forth  beyond  the  gates  of  Jerusalem.  ^ 

Jeremiah  had  as  strongly  as  had  Isaiah  the  unblurred 
insight  into  the  facts  and  the  conditions  of  his  day. 
In  his  case  the  word  "  Jeremiad  '^  does  not  mean  a 
vague  and  unthinking  abuse  of  conditions  which  he 
1  Jere.  xxii.  13-19. 


THE  PROPHECY  233 

did  not  himself  grasp.  He  was  a  preacher  of  repent- 
ance and  of  the  wrath  to  come ;  but  he  recognized  his 
impotence  in  the  councils  of  the  kings,  and  he  knew 
that  his  efforts  to  rouse  the  people  to  their  desperate 
state  were  vain.  With  him  the  sense  of  fact  has  not 
begun  to  decay. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  I  have  said,  the  name  which 
is  given  to  him  of  the  "  weeping  prophet ''  points  to 
the  change  which  is  coming  over  the  prophecy.  With 
him  the  emotion  is  more  noticeable  than  the  grasp  of 
fact.  One  of  his  own  utterances  points  to  this  break- 
ing down  of  the  equilibrium.  "  I  am  full  of  the  fury 
of  the  Lord,  I  am  weary  with  holding  in  '^ ;  and  the 
following  passage  shows  how  his  feeling  was  get- 
ting to  the  verge  of  control : 

Oh  that  my  head  were  waters,  and  mine  eyes  a 
fountain  of  tears,  that  I  might  weep  day  and 
night  for  the  slain  of  the  daughter  of  my 
people ! 

Oh  that  I  had  in  the  wilderness  a  lodging  place  of 
wayfaring  men;  that  I  might  leave  my  people  and 
go  from  them!  for  they  be  all  adulterers,  an  assem- 
bly of  treacherous  men. 

And  they  bend  their  tongues  like  their  bow  for 
lies :  but  they  are  not  valiant  for  the  truth  upon  the 
earth;  for  they  proceed  from  evil  to  evil,  and  they 
know  not  me,  saith  the  Lord.^ 
*  Jere.  ix.  1-3. 


234  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Indeed  the  keynote  to  his  message  may  be  found  in 
the  words ; 

A  wonderful  and  horrible  thing  is  committed  in 
the  land; 

The  prophets  prophesy  falsely,  and  the  priests 
bear  rule  by  their  means;  and  my  people  love  to 
have  it  so:  and  what  will  ye  do  in  the  end  thereof?  * 

The  vehemence  and  distress  of  the  prophet  has  risen 
to  a  point  in  which  words  begin  to  be  impotent.  We 
no  longer  feel  with  him  as  with  Isaiah  that  the  vivid 
sense  of  fact  is  in  perfect  balance  with  the  power  of 
feeling  and  imagination.  Now  the  feeling  and  emo- 
tion tend  to  reduce  the  prophet  to  helpless  despair. 
Both  elements  of  the  prophecy  still  exist,  but  the  feel- 
ing is  beginning  to  overshadow  the  intellectual  grasp. 
As  we  pass  on  into  the  next  generation,  the  two 
great  prophets  of  the  Exile  show  the  differentiation  al- 
ready well  begun.  On  the  one  hand  Ezekiel's  proph- 
ecies have  earnestness  and  sincerity,  but  in  form  they 
are  painstaking  rather  than  inspired.  With  the  great 
unknown  prophet,  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  on  the 
other  hand,  facts  become  vague  and  uncertain:  from 
him  we  get  no  help  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  his- 
tory; but  his  imagination  soars  on  the  wings  of  his 
spiritual  emotion  to  heights  where  the  vision  of  man 
loses  itself  in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 
1  Jere.  v.  30-31. 


THE  PROPHECY  235 

Let  us  consider  Ezekiel  first.  His  style  at  times 
has  almost  a  legal  precision  and  repetitiousness.  In 
Chapter  xviii  the  proverb,  ^^  The  fathers  have  eaten 
sour  grapes  and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge," 
is  elaborated  into  a  series  of  formal  and  detailed  judg- 
ments on  the  fate  of  a  just  man's  son  that  is  a  robber 
and  a  shedder  of  blood,  and  of  the  robber's  son  "  that 
seeth  all  his  father's  sins  which  he  hath  done,  and 
considereth,  and  doeth  not  such  like."  In  such  writ- 
ing we  have  come  far  from  the  impassioned  oracles  of 
Amos,  and  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah.  It  has  little  rela- 
tion to  poetry,  but  belongs  rather  to  the  formal  elab- 
orations of  doctrine  by  the  later  writers  of  the  Deu- 
teronomic  and  priestly  schools. 

Ezekiel's  visions  at  first  sight  seem  to  break  up  our 
classification.  The  description  of  "  the  appearance 
of  the  likeness  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord  "  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  book  seems  at  first  sight  to  be  purely 
mystical ;  but  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  figures 
of  the  cherubim  and  of  the  wheels  are  borrowed 
somewhat  literally  from  the  sculptures  of  the  Baby- 
lonian temples;  as  compared  with  the  vision  of 
Isaiah  in  Isaiah  vi  this  vision  of  Ezekiel  has  a 
painstaking  literalness  that  points  rather  to  poverty 
of  imagination  than  to  a  superabundance  of  it.  Eze- 
kiel was  by  no  means  destitute  of  poetic  power,  as  is 
sufficiently  shown  in  the  lamentations  inserted  in  his 


236  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

prophecies.  The  vision  of  the  Valley  of  Dry  Bones, 
one  of  the  most  striking  passages  in  all  the  Bible, 
will  give  a  fair  idea  both  of  his  power  and  of  his 
limitations : 

The  hand  of  the  Lord  was  upon  me,  and  carried 
me  out  in  the  spirit  of  the  Lord,  and  set  me  down 
in  the  midst  of  the  valley  which  was  full  of  bones, 

And  caused  me  to  pass  by  them  round  about: 
and,  behold,  there  were  very  many  in  the  open 
valley;  and,  lo,  they  were  very  dry. 

And  he  said  unto  me.  Son  of  man,  can  these 
bones  live?  And  I  answered,  O  Lord  God,  thou 
knowest. 

Again  he  said  unto  me,  Prophesy  upon  these 
bones,  and  say  unto  them,  O  ye  dry  bones,  hear 
the  word  of  the  Lord. 

Thus  saith  the  Lord  God  unto  these  bones; 
Behold,  I  will  cause  breath  to  enter  into  you,  and 
ye  shall  live: 

And  I  will  lay  sinews  upon  you,  and  will  bring 
up  flesh  upon  you,  and  cover  you  with  skin,  and 
put  breath  in  you,  and  ye  shall  live;  and  ye  shall 
know  that  I  am  the  Lord. 

So  I  prophesied  as  I  was  commanded:  and  as  I 
prophesied,  there  was  a  noise,  and  behold  a  shaking, 
and  the  bones  came  together,  bone  to  his  bone. 

And  when  I  beheld,  lo,  the  sinews  and  the  flesh 
came  up  upon  them,  and  the  skin  covered  them 
above:  but  there  was  no  breath  in  them. 

Then  said  he  unto  me.  Prophesy  unto  the  wind, 


THE  PROPHECY  237 

prophesy,  son  of  man,  and  say  to  the  wind,  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  God,  Come  from  the  four  winds,  O 
breath,  and  breathe  upon  these  slain,  that  they 
may  Hve. 

So  I  prophesied  as  he  commanded  me,  and  the 
breath  came  into  them,  and  they  hved,  and  stood 
upon  their  feet,  an  exceeding  great  army.i 

Here  is  imaginative  power  of  a  high  order:  but  the 
imagination  flags  and  becomes  pedestrian  in  the  ap- 
plication of  the  vision: 

Then  he  said  unto  me,  Son  of  man,  these  bones 
are  the  whole  house  of  Israel:  behold,  they  say, 
Our  bones  are  dried,  and  our  hope  is  lost:  we  are 
cut  off  for  our  parts. 

Therefore  prophesy  and  say  unto  them.  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  God;  Behold,  O  my  people,  I  will 
open  your  graves,  and  cause  you  to  come  up  out 
of  your  graves,  and  bring  you  into  the  land  of 
Israel. 

And  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord,  w^hen  I 
have  opened  your  graves,  O  my  people,  and  brought 
you  up  out  of  your  graves. 

And  shall  put  my  spirit  in  you,  and  ye  shall  live; 
and  I  shall  place  you  in  your  own  land :  then  shall 
ye  know  that  I  the  Lord  have  spoken  it,  and  per- 
formed it,  saith  the  Lord. 2 

Such  an  ending  hardly  justifies  the  indefinitely  sug- 
gestive power  of  the  vision :  nor  has  it  the  overwhelm- 
»  Ezek.  xxxvii.  1-10.  2  j^jd    11-14. 


238  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

ing  rush  of  feeling  of  tlie  earlier  prophets.  One  no 
longer  feels  one's  self  in  the  presence  of  a  man  who 
was  impelled  by  the  very  intensity  of  his  feeling  to 
the  utterance  of  his  message ;  one  no  longer  feels  that 
the  message  surged  up,  spontaneously  and  inevitably, 
from  the  depth  of  the  prophet's  consciousness.  Be- 
side Amos  and  Elijah,  the  wild  prophets  of  the  des- 
ert, Ezekiel  seems  a  cultivated  man  of  the  study  with 
high  moral  insight,  reasoning  out  the  words  which 
he  is  called  upon  to  deliver.  It  is  as  if  he  were  writ- 
ing out  ordinances  with  a  careful,  almost  scholarly 
scrutiny  of  the  form  which  they  would  take,  and  a 
painstaking  care  for  the  exact  statement  of  fact.  The 
long  vision  at  the  end  of  the  book  is  in  substance, 
and  at  times  in  manner,  closely  akin  to  the  later 
chapters  of  Exodus  and  the  earlier  chapters  of  Leviti- 
cus and  of  Numbers.  It  shows  Ezekiel  as  the  stu- 
dent of  the  law,  absorbed  in  working  out  and  codi- 
fying the  prescriptions  for  the  liturgy  and  ritual  of 
the  temple.  He  brings  the  prophecy  into  close  rela- 
tions with  the  legal  portions  of  the  Pentateuch; 
though  with  him  the  absorption  in  details  is  always 
relieved  by  imaginative  insight  into  their  symbolic 
meaning.  There  is  much  in  his  prophecy  in  which 
the  poetic  form  seems  an  outer  shell  rather  than  an 
organic  part  of  the  message.  In  Ezekiel,  in  con- 
trast to  the  earlier  prophets,  the  sense  of  fact  is  no 


THE  PROPHECY  239 

longer  fused  and  transfigured  by  the  tense  heat  of 
the  imagination  and  feeling. 

With  Ezekiel's  younger  and  greater  contemporary, 
the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  the  case  is  just  the  opposite. 
The  very  fact  that  his  name  is  lost  seems  sym- 
bolic of  the  relative  unimportance  of  specific  facts 
in  his  writing.  His  message  is  a  message  of  comfort 
and  of  spiritual  uplifting.  His  people  are  hopelessly 
subdued  and  political  action  has  no  meaning  for  them 
or  for  him.  We  know  from  his  prophecy  that  Judah 
is  captive  in  Babylon ;  but  his  prophecies  contain  al- 
most no  description  of  the  condition  under  which  the 
people  lived ;  and  the  promises  of  comfort  to  them  are 
vaguely  large  and  figurative.  The  promises  of  imal- 
loyed  bliss  in  the  later  chapters  of  the  book  made  to 
the  people  apparently  after  the  return  to  Jerusalem, 
when  their  miserable  state  must  have  been  a  bitter 
contrast  to  their  jubilant  hopes,  seem  to  be  heightened 
almost  in  proportion  to  their  present  despair.  We 
shall  see  later  what  a  long  step  this  soaring  into 
visions  of  a  vague  and  unfixed  future  is  toward  the 
apocalyptic  literature  which  succeeded  the  prophecy 
in  the  next  century  or  two. 

On  the  other  hand  no  portion  of  the  literature  of 

the  Old  Testament  is  more  individual  in  stvle  and 

1/ 

thought  or  more  gloriously  uplifting  in  expression 
than  the  oracles  of  this  great  prophet  of  the  Exile. 


240  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

He  rises  to  a  new  level  of  faith  with  the  indomitable 
buoyancy  which  was  the  genius  of  Israel  at  each  crisis 
of  its  religion.  The  ancestral  idea  that  Jehovah 
would  protect  them  in  all  events  against  the  gods  of 
the  heathen  was  finally  shattered ;  but  this  new  seer 
boldly  declares  that  Jehovah  is  the  God  of  the  whole 
earth : 

Have  ye  not  known?  have  ye  not  heard?  hath  it 
not  been  told  you  from  the  beginning?  have  ye 
not  understood  from  the  foundations  of  the  earth? 

It  is  he  that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth, 
and  the  inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grasshoppers; 
that  stretcheth  out  the  heavens  as  a  curtain,  and 
spreadeth  them  out  as  a  tent  to  dwell  in.^ 

I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is 
no  God  beside  me:  I  girded  thee,  though  thou  hast 
not  known  me: 

That  they  may  know  from  the  rising  of  the  sun, 
and  from  the  west,  that  there  is  none  beside  me. 
I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else. 

I  form  the  light,  and  create  darkness:  I  make 
peace  and  create  evil:  I  the  Lord  do  all  these 
things. 

Drop  down,  ye  heavens,  from  above,  and  let  the 
skies  pour  down  righteousness:  let  the  earth  open, 
and  let  them  bring  forth  salvation,  and  let  right- 
eousness spring  up  together;  I  the  Lord  have 
created  it  .2 

» Isa.  xl.  21-22.  '  Ibid.,  xlv.  &-8. 


THE  PROPHECY  241 

This  triumphant  exultation  in  the  omnipotent  power 
of  Jehovah  is  the  keynote  of  his  message. 

Nevertheless  this  characteristic  and  jubilant  eleva- 
tion only  emphasizes  the  disturbance  of  the  equilib- 
rium which  we  found  in  Amos  and  Isaiah.  The 
Isaiah  of  the  Exile  is  not  a  statesman  charged  with 
the  responsibility  for  the  political  actions  of  his  na- 
tion. He  bears  a  message  of  comfort  and  of  hope; 
but  he  proclaims  a  future  whose  details  are  not  un- 
veiled. Isaiah  always  had  his  feeling  in  firm  con- 
trol; and  though  it  rise  to  white  heat,  it  only  gives 
the  words  of  his  oracle  a  stronger  motion  without 
changing  their  character.  The  Isaiah  of  the  Exile 
in  contrast  is  carried  away  into  lyrical  utterances 
which  almost  become  pure  rhapsody. 

Sing,  O  heavens;  and  be  joyful,  O  earth;  and 
break  forth  into  singing,  O  mountains:  for  the 
Lord  hath  comforted  his  people,  and  will  have 
mercy  upon  his  afflicted.^ 

Awake,  awake;  put  on  thy  strength,  O  Zion;  put 
on  thy  beautiful  garments,  O  Jerusalem,  the  holy 
city:  for  henceforth  there  shall  no  more  come  into 
thee  the  uncircumcised  and  the  unclean. 

Shake  thyself  from  the  dust;  arise,  and  sit  down, 
O  Jerusalem:  loose  thyself  from  the  bands  of  thy 
neck,  O  captive  daughter  of  Zion. 

How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet 
1  Isa.  xlix.  13. 


242  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

of  him  that  bringeth  good  tidings;  that  pubHsheth 
peace;  that  bringeth  good  tidings  of  good,  that 
pubhsheth  salvation;  that  saith  unto  Zion,  Thy 
God  reigneth! 

Thy  watchmen  shall  lift  up  the  voice;  with  the 
voice  together  shall  they  sing:  for  they  shall  see 
eye  to  eye,  when  the  Lord  shall  bring  again  Zion. 

Break  forth  into  joy,  sing  together,  ye  waste 
places  of  Jerusalem:  for  the  Lord  hath  comforted 
his  people,  he  hath  redeemed  Jerusalem. 

The  Lord  hath  made  bare  his  holy  arm  in  the 
eyes  of  all  the  nations;  and  all  the  ends  of  the  earth 
shall  see  the  salvation  of  our  God.^ 

Such  passages  are  wholly  different  from  the  grave 
and  terse  utterances  of  Isaiah  and  his  stern  conscious- 
ness of  fact.  By  the  side  of  the  prophet  of  the  exile, 
Isaiah  seems  more  austere  and  more  remote,  a  figure 
isolated  in  antiquity:  and  beside  Isaiah  the  prophet 
of  the  Exile  seems  carried  away  by  emotion  and  im- 
agination, and  uncontrolled  by  the  stern  sense  of  fact. 
An  even  more  striking  example  of  this  tendency  of 
one  school  of  the  later  prophecy  to  break  over  into 
rhapsodical  utterance  may  be  found  in  the  striking 
passage  in  Isaiah  xxi  which  comes  from  some  other 
unknown  prophet  of  the  Exile : 

My  heart  panted,  fearfulness  affrighted  me: 
the  night  of  my  pleasure  hath  he  turned  into  fear 
unto  me. 

» Isa.  Hi.  1-2,  7-10. 


THE  PROPHECY  243 

Prepare  the  table,  watch  in  the  watchtower,  eat, 
drink:  arise,  ye  princes,  and  anoint  the  shield. 

For  thus  hath  the  Lord  said  unto  me.  Go,  set  a 
watchman,  let  him  declare  what  he  seeth. 

And  he  saw  a  chariot  with  a  couple  of  horsemen, 
a  chariot  of  asses,  and  a  chariot  of  camels;  and  he 
hearkened  diligently  with  much  heed: 

And  he  cried,  A  lion:  My  lord,  I  stand  continually 
upon  the  watchtower  in  the  day  time,  and  I  am 
set  in  my  ward  whole  nights: 

And,  behold,  here  cometh  a  chariot  of  men, 
with  a  couple  of  horsemen.  And  he  answered  and 
said,  Babylon  is  fallen,  is  fallen;  and  all  the  graven 
images  of  her  gods  he  hath  broken  unto  the  ground. 

O  my  threshing,  and  the  corn  of  my  floor:  that 
which  I  have  heard  of  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God 
of  Israel,  have  I  declared  unto  you.^ 

Here  the  wild  incoherence  of  the  message  and  the 
swift  flashing  of  its  imagery  seem  to  point  to  an  in- 
tensity of  feeling  which  has  broken  away  from  any 
sober  control  and  consideration  of  facts.  Here,  even 
more  than  in  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  the  emotional 
power  predominates. 

Thus  the  prophecy  has  lost  its  perfect  balance  and 
fusion.  In  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile  the  messages  show 
a  dominance  of  emotion  and  a  relaxing  grasp  of  fact ; 
his  utterances  tend  to  rhapsody;  the  promises  of 
hope  have  become  vague,  and  though  they  are  more 
^  Isa.  xxi.  4-10. 


244  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

soaring  they  tend  in  the  direction  of  the  mystical. 
With  Ezekiel  on  the  other  hand  we  found  that  the 
sense  of  fact  was  in  the  dominant  and  that  the  emo- 
tional force  had  lost  its  momentum.  Thus  in  these 
two  prophets  of  the  Exile,  who  were  almost  contem- 
poraneous, we  may  see  the  breaking  down  begun. 
This  process  I  have  not  space  to  trace  out.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  with  Haggai  and  Malachi,  earnest  and 
sincere  as  they  were,  one  feels  the  limitation  to  the 
perception  of  a  narrow  range  of  fact,  and  a  corre- 
sponding weakening  of  the  imaginative  power.  In 
Zechariah  an  increasing  interest  in  the  vision  and  in- 
creasing reliance  on  vague  and  mystical  suggestions 
go  with  a  corresponding  insignificance  of  fact.  So 
the  prophecy  gradually  passed  away.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  was  drying  up,  as  it  were,  in  the  words  of 
earnest  men  whose  feeling  and  imagination  were  too 
weak  to  burn  their  words  into  the  life  of  their  con- 
temporaries; on  the  other  hand,  it  was  floating  off 
into  the  clouds  of  the  mystical  kingdom  of  God  and 
losing  its  hold  on  the  realities  of  human  life. 


Ill 


If  after  this  brief  sketch  of  the  gradual  change 
in  the  character  of  the  prophetic  literature,  we  at- 
tempt to  define  its  chief  characteristics  as  part  of  the 


THE  PROPHECY  245 

English  Bible  we  shall  find  its  determining  attribute 
in  the  fact  that  the  prophet  spoke  always  as  the 
mouthpiece  of  Jehovah:  he  was  possessed  by  the 
hand  of  the  Lord,  and  the  words  which  emerged 
from  his  lips  were  the  immediate  utterance  of  God. 
Sometimes  Jehovah  speaks  directly  in  the  first 
person : 

When  Israel  was  a  child,  then  I  loved  him,  and 
called  my  son  out  of  Egypt. 

As  they  called  them,  so  they  went  from  them: 
they  sacrificed  unto  Baalim,  and  burned  incense  to 
graven  images. 

I  taught  Ephraim  also  to  go,  taking  them  by 
their  arms;  but  they  knew  not  that  I  healed  them.- 

I  drew  them  with  cords  of  a  man,  with  bands 
of  love:  and  I  was  to  them  as  they  that  take  off 
the  yoke  on  their  jaws,  and  I  laid  meat  unto  them.^ 

Sometimes  the  prophecy  passes  from  such  direct  dis- 
course to  a  description  of  the  message  which  is  com- 
mitted to  the  prophet,  as  in  the  case  of  the  fine  dia- 
logue which  has  been  incorporated  in  the  book  of  the 
prophet  Micah : 

Hear  ye  now  what  the  Lord  saith;  Arise,  contend 
thou  before  the  mountains,  and  let  the  hills  hear 
thy  voice. 

Hear  ye,  O  mountains,  the  Lord's  controversy, 
and  ye  strong  foundations  of  the  earth:  for  the 
^  Hosea  xi.  1-4. 


246  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Lord  hath  a  controversy  with  his  people,  and  he 
will  plead  with  Israel. 

O  my  people,  what  have  I  done  unto  thee?  and 
wherein  have  I  wearied  thee?  testify  against  me. 

For  I  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
and  redeemed  thee  out  of  the  house  of  servants; 
and  I  sent  before  thee  Moses,  Aaron,  and  Miriam. 

O  my  people  remember  now  what  Balak  king  of 
Moab  consulted,  and  what  Balaam  the  son  of  Beor 
answered  him  from  Shittim  unto  Gilgal;  that  ye 
may  know  the  righteousness  of  the  Lord. 

Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and 
bow  myself  before  the  high  God?  shall  I  come  before 
him  with  burnt  offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old? 

Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  thousands  of 
rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil?  shall  I 
give  my  firstborn  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit 
of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul? 

He  hath  showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good; 
and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to 
do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God?  1 

But  always  these  oracles  of  the  prophets  differ  from 
anything  else  in  the  Old  Testament  in  the  fact  that 
the  man  who  utters  them  feels  that  the  words  spring 
from  his  lips  completely  formed,  without  volition  of 
his  own.  This  consciousness  of  detachment  appears 
strikingly  in  the  account  of  how  Amaziah,  the  priest 
of  the  sanctuary  at  Beth-el,  tried  to  silence  Amos : 
*  Micah  vi.  1-8. 


THE  PROPHECY  247 

Also  Amaziah  said  unto  Amos,  O  thou  seer,  go 
flee  thee  away  into  the  land  of  Judah,  and  there  eat 
bread,  and  prophesy  there: 

But  prophesy  not  again  any  more  at  Beth-el: 
for  it  is  the  king's  chapel,  and  it  is  the  king's  court. 

Then  answered  Amos,  and  said  to  Amaziah,  I 
was  no  prophet,  neither  was  I  a  prophet's  son;  but 
I  was  an  herdman  and  a  gatherer  of  sycomore 
fruit : 

And  the  Lord  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flock, 
and  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Go,  prophesy  unto  my 
people  Israel.  1 

Here  Amos,  unlike  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  and  most 
of  the  other  prophets,  seems  to  feel  little  responsibil- 
ity for  results:  it  is  as  if  he  felt  his  function  to  be 
fulfilled  when  he  had  thrust  his  message  on  the  un- 
willing attention  of  his  hearers.  In  the  Psalms  and 
in  Job  the  passionate  faith  or  distress  of  the  individ- 
ual Jew  rings  through  the  verses  and  imparts  the 
note  of  poignant  feeling  which  makes  them  kin  to  the 
whole  world.  In  the  prophets,  even  in  the  yearning 
love  which  shines  through  the  messages  of  Hosea 
or  the  bitter  and  burning  despair  of  Jeremiah,  there 
are  always  a  larger  thought  and  a  majesty  which 
befit  the  words  of  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts. 

As  a  result  of  this  sense  of  possession  by  the  hand 
of  Jehovah  the  prophetic  writings  show  a  feeling  for 
^  Amos  vii.  12-15. 


248  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  proportions  of  things  which  makes  them  the  best 
possible  foundation  for  a  study  of  modern  literature. 
It  is  easy  for  a  student  of  any  form  of  art  to  get 
into  the  frame  of  mind  of  Walter  Pater,  that  subli- 
mated sentimentalist,  and  feel  that  the  only  effort 
worth  a  refined  man's  attention  is  to  free  himself  from 
the  turmoil  and  dust  of  life^  and  dwell  in  a  half -as- 
cetic, half -aesthetic  Olympus  of  beautiful  words  and 
beautiful  things.  To  a  student  of  these  books  of  the 
prophets  such  an  attitude  is  impossible,  for  they  con- 
tinually occupy  themselves  with  the  solid  realities  of 
history  and  human  fate.  With  them  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  whether  an  individual  man  shall  taste  the  last 
drop  of  sweetness  or  wisdom  from  this  world's  cup, 
or  even,  as  with  Shakspere  at  his  highest,  of  how  the 
tangle  of  character  and  circumstance  in  man's  fate 
shall  work  itself  out  into  clear  portrayal :  the  prophets 
are  concerned  with  the  fulfillment  of  the  will  of  God, 
and  with  bringing  his  chosen  people  to  a  compelling 
sense  of  the  righteousness  that  shall  regenerate  the 
world.  And  their  indomitable  faith  in  the  enduring 
purpose  of  Jehovah  makes  the  controlled  hedonism 
and  agnosticism  of  Ecclesiastes  seem  pusillanimous. 
Even  in  the  case  of  Haggai  this  absorption  in  the 
service  of  the  God  of  the  whole  earth  lends  dignity 
and  power  to  the  narrowing  interest  of  the  message. 
This  largeness  of  interest  is  reinforced  by  the  spe- 


THE  PROPHECY  249 

cial  virtues  of  the  Old  Testament  poetry.  We  have 
seen  that  the  Hebrew  language  was  limited  to  the 
solid  and  concrete  realities  of  life,  and  that  the  He- 
brew poetry  as  it  is  translated  in  the  English  of  our 
Bible  added  to  the  higher  expressiveness  of  poetry 
the  freedom  and  the  undisturbed  naturalness  of  prose. 
These  virtues  are  shared  by  the  prophecies ;  and  they 
in  consequence  reinforce  the  high  seriousness  and  the 
large  and  noble  sense  of  proportion  by  a  robustness 
and  weighty  power  which  again  distinguishes  them 
in  our  literature.  Finally,  the  inmost  essence  of 
their  power  lies  in  its  spiritual  elevation.  To  these 
prophets,  to  Amos  and  Hosea  and  Isaiah,  to  Jere- 
miah, Ezekiel  and  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  to  Joel 
and  Malachi  and  Zechariah,  with  all  their  unknown 
contemporaries  and  coworkers,  it  was  given  to  touch 
the  realities  of  the  world  of  this  life  with  the  vivify- 
ing force  of  the  unseen.  Their  oracles  were  phrased 
in  the  words  of  the  things  which  men  can  see  and 
hear  and  feel,  but  they  are  filled  with  the  palpable 
breath  of  the  things  which  lie  beyond  our  present 
capacities  to  comprehend.  More  than  the  other  writ- 
ings of  the  Old  Testament  they  spring  from  what, 
because  it  is  inexplicable,  we  call  genius. 


CHAPTEK    VII 

THE    APOCALYPSE 
I 

The  prophecy  did  not  pass  away,  however,  without 
sowing  the  seeds  of  a  type  of  writing,  which  in 
thought  was  to  rise  still  higher,  and  finally  to  bear 
fruit  in  one  of  the  books  of  the  l^ew  Testament ;  this 
was  the  work  of  the  apocalyptic  writers,  who  grad- 
ually succeeded  to  the  place  of  the  prophets  in  the 
last  centuries  of  the  old  era,  and  who  in  the  first  cen- 
tury of  the  new  produced  the  book  of  Revelation. 
The  outward  form  of  the  apocalypses  is  sometimes 
fantastic,  almost  trivial;  but  the  faith  which  pro- 
duced them  ennobled  this  outward  form  into  the 
vehicle  of  the  most  elevated  thought  yet  attained  by 
the  Jewish  race. 

The  apocalyptic  writing  sprang  naturally  out  of 
the  prophecies;  for  the  Jews  of  the  Exile  and  of 
the  succeeding  wretched  centuries  took  literally  the 
many  promises  of  the  restoration  of  power  and  hap- 
piness to  Israel  and  of  punishment  for  their  enemies 

250 


THE  APOCALYPSE  251 

which  they  read  in  the  books  of  the  prophets.  The 
Isaiah  of  the  Exile  has  many  such  passages  of  hope 
as  the  following: 

Thus  saith  the  Lord,  the  Redeemer  of  Israel, 
and  his  Holy  One,  to  him  whom  man  despiseth,  to 
him  whom  the  nation  abhorreth,  to  a  servant  of 
rulers,  Kings  shall  see  and  arise,  princes  also  shall 
worship,  because  of  the  Lord  that  is  faithful,  and 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  and  he  shall  choose  thee. 

Thus  saith  the  Lord,  in  an  acceptable  time  have 
I  heard  thee,  and  in  a  day  of  salvation  have  I 
helped  thee:  and  I  will  preserve  thee,  and  give 
thee  for  a  covenant  of  the  people,  to  establish  the 
earth,  to  cause  to  inherit  the  desolate  heritages; 

That  thou  mayest  say  to  the  prisoners,  Go  forth; 
to  them  that  are  in  darkness.  Shew  yourselves. 
They  shall  feed  in  the  ways,  and  their  pastures 
shall  be  in  all  high  places. 

They  shall  not  hunger  nor  thirst;  neither  shall 
the  heat  nor  sun  smite  them:  for  he  that  hath 
mercy  on  them  shall  lead  them,  even  by  the  springs 
of  water  shall  he  guide  them. 

And  I  will  make  all  my  mountains  a  way,  and 
my  highways  shall  be  exalted. 

Behold,  these  shall  come  from  far:  and,  lo,  these 
from  the  north  and  from  the  west;  and  these  from 
the  land  of  Sinim.^ 

With  such  promises  of  restoration  for  Israel  go  cor- 
^  Isa.  xlix.  7-12. 


252  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

responding  denunciations  of  the  woe  to  come  for  the 
enemies  of  Israel: 

Shall  the  prey  be  taken  from  the  mighty,  or  the 
lawful  captive  delivered? 

But  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Even  the  captives  of  the 
mighty  shall  be  taken  away,  and  the  prey  of  the 
terrible  shall  be  delivered:  for  I  will  contend  with 
him  that  contendeth  with  thee,  and  I  will  save 
thy  children. 

And  I  will  feed  them  that  oppress  thee  with  their 
own  flesh;  and  they  shall  be  drunken  with  their  own 
blood,  as  with  sweet  wine:  and  all  flesh  shall  know 
that  I  the  Lord  am  thy  Saviour  and  thy  Redeemer, 
the  Mighty  One  of  Jacob.  ^ 

From  these  and  similar  prophecies  had  developed  the 
idea  of  a  day  of  the  Lord  when  the  heathen  should  be 
brought  to  judgment  and  confusion,  and  the  way 
prepared  for  the  return  of  Israel. 

As  time  went  on  and  the  Jews  became  hopelessly 
insignificant  as  a  nation,  instead  of  letting  go  their 
hope  of  the  fulfillment  of  these  prophecies  they  merely 
postponed  it  to  a  vaguer  and  more  distant  future. 
The  later  prophetic  writings  show  a  corresponding 
largeness  and  vagueness  of  outline,  of  which  ex- 
amples may  be  found  in  Joel:^ 

Let  the  heathen  be  wakened,  and  come  up  to  the 
valley  of  Jehoshaphat:  for  there  will  I  sit  to  judge 
all  the  heathen  round  about. 

*  Isa.  xlix.  24-26. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  253 

Put  ye  in  the  sickle,  for  the  harvest  is  ripe :  come, 
get  you  down;  for  the  press  is  full,  the  fats  over- 
flow; for  their  wickedness  is  great. 

Multitudes,  multitudes  in  the  valley  of  decision: 
for  the  day  of  the  Lord  is  near  in  the  valley  of 
decision. 

The  sun  and  the  moon  shall  be  darkened,  and  the 
stars  shall  withdraw  their  shining. 

The  Lord  also  shall  roar  out  of  Zion,  and  utter 
his  voice  from  Jerusalem;  and  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  shall  shake :  but  the  Lord  will  be  the  hope  of 
his  people,  and  the  strength  of  the  children  of 
Israel. 

So  shall  ye  know  that  I  am  the  Lord  your  God 
dwelling  in  Zion,  my  holy  mountain:  then  shall 
Jerusalem  be  holy,  and  there  shall  no  strangers  pass 
through  her  any  more.^ 

Scattered  through  the  books  of  the  prophets  there  is 
a  considerable  body  of  writing  of  this  large  and 
vague  character  which  unveils  the  destiny  of  Israel 
and  its  enemies  in  an  undetermined  future.  The 
considerable  passage  in  Isaiah  xxiv-xxvii,  which 
comes  probably  from  the  end  of  the  fourth  century 
B.C.  or  later,  is  an  example.  Here  are  two  specimens 
from  it: 

And  in  this  mountain  shall  the  Lord  of  hosts 
make  unto  all  people  a  feast  of  fat  things,  a  feast 
of  wines  on  the  lees,  of  fat  things  full  of  marrow, 
of  wines  on  the  lees  well  refined. 
^  Joel  iii.  12-17. 


254  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And  he  will  destroy  in  this  mountain  the  face  of 
the  covering  cast  over  all  people,  and  the  vail  that 
is  spread  over  all  nations. 

He  will  swallow  up  death  in  victory;  and  the 
Lord  God  will  wipe  away  tears  from  off  all  faces; 
and  the  rebuke  of  his  people  shall  he  take  away 
from  off  all  the  earth :  for  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it.^ 

In  that  day  the  Lord,  with  his  sore  and  great 
and  strong  sword  shall  punish  leviathan  the  pierc- 
ing serpent,  even  leviathan  that  crooked  serpent; 
and  he  shall  slay  the  dragon  that  is  in  the  sea. 

In  that  day  sing  ye  unto  her,  A  vineyard  of  red 
wine. 

I  the  Lord  do  keep  it:  I  will  water  it  every 
moment:  lest  any  hurt  it,  I  will  keep  it  night  and 
day. 

Fury  is  not  in  me:  who  would  set  the  briers  and 
thorns  against  me  in  battle?  I  would  go  through 
them,  I  would  burn  them  together. 

Or  let  him  take  hold  of  my  strength,  that  he 
may  make  peace  with  me;  and  he  shall  make  peace 
with  me. 

He  shall  cause  them  that  come  of  Jacob  to  take 
root:  Israel  shall  blossom  and  bud,  and  fill  the 
face  of  the  world  with  fruit.^ 

This  type  of  the  apocalyptic  writing  is  little  different 
in  external  form  from  the  prophecy  of  the  earlier 
centuries.  It  is  not  often  as  sustained  as  Joel,  which 
is  the  finest  example  of  it ;  and  it  is  not  infrequently 
1  Isa.  XXV.  6-8.  2  ibi^    xxvii.  1-6. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  255 

broken  by  passages  which  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  psalms,  as  in  Isaiah  xxiv-xxvii.  In  subject 
matter  it  is  often  characterized  by  a  revelling  in  grim 
pictures  of  the  annihilation  of  the  heathen,  after  the 
manner  of  Ezekiel  in  his  prophecies  against  the  semi- 
mystical  "  Gog,  the  land  of  Magog,  the  chief  prince 
of  Meshech  and  Tubal  "  : 

For  in  my  jealousy  and  in  the  fire  of  my  wTath 
have  I  spoken,  Surely  in  that  day  there  shall  be 
a  great  shaking  in  the  land  of  Israel; 

So  that  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  and  the  fowls  of 
the  heaven,  and  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  all  creep- 
ing things  that  creep  upon  the  earth,  and  all  the 
men  that  are  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  shall  shake 
at  my  presence,  and  the  mountains  shall  be  thrown 
down,  and  the  steep  places  shall  fall,  and  every 
wall  shall  fall  to  the  ground. 

And  I  will  call  for  a  sword  against  him  through- 
out all  my  mountains,  saith  the  Lord  God:  every 
man's  sword  shall  be  against  his  brother. 

And  I  will  plead  against  him  with  pestilence  and 
with  blood;  and  I  will  rain  upon  him,  and  upon  his 
bands,  and  upon  the  many  people  that  are  with  him, 
an  overflowing  rain,  and  great  hailstones,  fire,  and 
brimstone. 

Thus  will  I  magnify  myself,  and  sanctify  myself; 
and  I  will  be  known  in  the  eyes  of  many  nations, 
and  they  shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord.^ 

'  Ezek.  xxxviii.  19-23. 


256  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And,  thou  son  of  man,  thus  saith  the  Lord  God; 
Speak  unto  every  feathered  fowl,  and  to  every  beast 
of  the  field,  Assemble  yourselves,  and  come;  gather 
yourselves  on  every  side  to  my  sacrifice  that  I  do 
sacrifice  for  you,  even  a  great  sacrifice  upon  the 
mountains  of  Israel,  that  ye  may  eat  flesh,  and 
drink  blood. 

Ye  shall  eat  the  flesh  of  the  mighty,  and  drink 
the  blood  of  the  princes  of  the  earth,  of  rams,  of 
lambs,  and  of  goats,  of  bullocks,  all  of  them  fat- 
lings  of  Bashan. 

And  ye  shall  eat  fat  till  ye  be  full,  and  drink 
blood  till  ye  be  drunken,  of  my  sacrifice  which  I 
have  sacrificed  for  you. 

Thus  ye  shall  be  filled  at  my  table  with  horses 
and  chariots,  with  mighty  men,  and  with  all  men 
of  war,  saith  the  Lord  God. 

And  I  will  set  my  glory  among  the  heathen,  and 
all  the  heathen  shall  see  my  judgment  that  I  have 
executed,  and  my  hand  that  I  have  laid  upon  them. 

So  the  house  of  Israel  shall  know  that  I  am  the 
Lord  their  God  from  that  day  and  forward.^ 

This  idea  of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord 
is  repeated  with  many  slight  variations  in  Joel  and 
in  a  number  of  late  additions  to  the  books  of  the 
prophets,  such  as  Jeremiah  l-li,  Isaiah  xxiv-xxvii, 
Zechariah  ix-xiv.  Where  the  imagination  of  the 
writer  was  weak  and  dependent  as  in  Jeremiah  l-li 
the  denunciation  and  promise  are  labored  and  repeti- 
1  Ezek.  xxxix.  17-22. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  257 

tious ;  where  it  was  strong  and  soaring  the  message  is 
eloquent  and  stirring.  Always  its  source  and  its 
support  lay  in  the  inextinguishable  confidence  of 
these  later  generations  of  Jews  that  the  promises  of 
Jehovah  through  his  prophets  could  not  pass  unful- 
filled. Postponement  of  the  fulfilment  has  only  the 
effect  of  heightening  the  colors  of  the  final  retribution 
and  adding  grandeur  to  its  scope. 


II 


It  was  in  another  direction,  however,  that  this  late, 
post-prophetic  writing  brought  forth  the  type  of  the 
apocalypse  which  is  most  commonly  thought  of  as 
such,  that  which  appears  full  fledged  in  the  visions 
of  Daniel  •and  comes  to  its  culmination  in  Revela- 
tion, and  in  the  Apocrypha  in  2  Esdras.  Outwardly 
this  type  of  the  apocalypse  may  be  described  as  a  kind 
of  writing  in  which  the  events  of  the  immediate  past 
and  of  the  present  are  set  forth  in  elaborate  imagery 
as  the  visions  of  a  seer  of  a  time  long  past.  Daniel, 
which  can  be  dated  more  definitely  than  any  other 
book  of  the  Old  Testament,  comes  from  the  year  164 
B.C.  when  the  Jews  had  been  saved  from  total  ex- 
tinction by  the  miraculous  victories  of  Judas  Macca- 
baeus  and  the  temple  had  just  been  rededicated  after 
the  desecrations  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes.    It  sums  up 


258  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  history  of  the  preceding  centuries  in  the  vision  of 
the  four  beasts,  which  stand  for  the  empires  of  As- 
syria, Chaldea,  Persia,  and  Greece,  and  symbolises 
the  war  between  the  Ptolemies  and  the  kings  of 
Syria  and  the  persecutions  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes 
in  the  vision  of  the  ram  and  the  he-goat  and  the 
little  horn  of  the  he-goat  which 

waxed  great,  even  to  the  host  of  heaven;  and  it 
cast  down  some  of  the  host  and  of  the  stars  to 
the  ground,  and  stamped  upon  them. 

Yea,  he  magnified  himself  even  to  the  prince  of 
the  host,  and  by  him  the  daily  sacrifice  was  taken 
away,  and  the  place  of  his  sanctuary  was  cast  down. 

And  an  host  was  given  him  against  the  daily 
sacrifice  by  reason  of  transgression,  and  it  cast 
down  the  truth  to  the  ground;  and  it  practised,  and 
prospered.  1 

In  2  Esdras  this  imagery  is  developed  in  a  some- 
what different  way  in  the  form  of  the  feathers  of  the 
eagle  which  is  declared  to  be  the  "  kingdom  which 
was  seen  in  the  vision  of  thy  brother  Daniel." 

Then  I  beheld,  and,  lo,  in  process  of  time  the 
feathers  that  followed  stood  up  upon  the  right  side, 
that  they  might  rule  also;  and  some  of  them  ruled, 
but  within  a  while  they  appeared  no  more: 

For  some  of  them  were  set  up,  but  ruled  not. 

After  this  I  looked,  and,  behold,  the  twelve 
*  Dan.  viii.  10-12. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  259 

feathers  appeared  no  more,  nor  the  two  Httle 
feathers : 

And  there  was  no  more  upon  the  eagle's  body, 
but  three  heads  that  rested,  and  six  little  wings. 

Then  saw  I  also  that  two  little  feathers  divided 
themselves  from  the  six,  and  remained  under  the 
head  that  was  upon  the  right  side:  for  the  four 
continued  in  their  place. 

And  I  beheld,  and,  lo,  the  feathers  that  were 
under  the  wing  thought  to  set  up  themselves,  and 
to  have  the  rule. 

And  I  beheld,  and,  lo,  there  was  one  set  up,  but 
shortly  it  appeared  no  more.^ 

In  Revelation  the  same  machinery  appears  in  the 
beast  with  seven  heads  and  ten  horns : 

And  I  stood  upon  the  sand  of  the  sea,  and  saw 
a  beast  rise  up  out  of  the  sea,  having  seven  heads 
and  ten  horns,  and  upon  his  horns  ten  crowns,  and 
upon  his  heads  the  name  of  blasphemy. 

And  they  beast  which  I  saw  was  like  unto  a  leop- 
ard, and  his  feet  were  as  the  feet  of  a  bear,  and 
his  mouth  as  the  mouth  of  a  lion:  and  the  dragon 
gave  him  his  power,  and  his  seat,  and  great  author- 
ity. 

And  I  saw  one  of  his  heads,  as  it  were  wounded 
to  death;  and  his  deadly  wound  was  healed:  and 
all  the  world  wondered  after  the  beast. 

And  they  worshipped  the  dragon  which  gave  power 
unto  the  beast:  and  they  worshipped  the  beast, 
*  2  Esdras  xi.  20-26. 


260  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

saying,  Who  is  like  unto  the  beast?  who  is  able  to 
make  war  with  him?  ^ 


It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the  author  of  Reve- 
lation subordinates  this  special  type  of  imagery.  It 
is  hardly  more  than  an  incident  in  a  very  great  pro- 
fusion of  images  of  many  kinds.  In  comparison, 
Daniel  and  even  2  Esdras  seem  to  dwell  on  the  some- 
what cumbrous  machinery  of  their  visions  to  the 
point  almost  of  weariness.  It  is  as  if,  especially  in 
the  case  of  Daniel,  the  imagination  of  the  writer  had 
not  power  and  heat  enough  to  burn  away  the  dross  of 
the  form.  In  all  three  of  these  apocalypses,  how- 
ever, the  device  is  so  transparent  that  it  is  wholly 
innocent ;  and  scholars  have  found  much  exercise  for 
learning  and  ingenuity  in  unravelling  the  puzzle  so 
artfully  constructed  in  order  to  get  at  the  exact  date 
of  the  given  apocalypse. 

I^or  is  there  anything  essentially  new  in  the  ma- 
chinery. Ezekiel,  whose  influence  on  later  writers 
was  so  great,  used  elaborate  figures  to  describe  pres- 
ent conditions  in  a  way  which  needed  only  a  mod- 
erate extension  to  provide  all  the  machinery  of  the 
apocalypses.  He  sets  forth  the  fate  of  Assyria,  then 
recently  accomplished,  in  the  figure  of  a  parable 
spoken  to  Pharaoh,  king  of  Egypt: 

^  Rev.  xiii.  1-4. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  261 

Behold,  the  Assyrian  was  a  cedar  in  Lebanon 
with  fair  branches,  and  with  a  shadowing  shroud, 
and  of  an  high  stature;  and  his  top  was  among 
the  thick  boughs. 

The  waters  made  him  great,  the  deep  set  him  up 
on  high  with  her  rivers  running  round  about  his 
plants,  and  sent  out  her  little  rivers  unto  all  the 
trees  of  the  field. 

Therefore  his  height  was  exalted  above  all  the 
trees  of  the  field,  and  his  boughs  were  multiplied, 
and  his  branches  became  long  because  of  the  mul- 
titude of  waters,  when  he  shot  forth. 

All  the  fowls  of  heaven  made  their  nests  in  his 
boughs,  and  under  his  branches  did  all  the  beasts 
of  the  field  bring  forth  their  young,  and  under  his 
shadow  dwelt  all  great  nations. 

Thus  was  he  fair  in  his  greatness,  in  the  length 
of  his  branches:  for  his  root  was  by  great  waters. 

The  cedars  in  the  garden  of  God  could  not  hide 
him:  the  fir  trees  were  not  like  his  boughs,  and  the 
chestnut  trees  were  not  like  his  branches;  nor  any 
tree  in  the  garden  of  God  was  like  unto  him  in 
his  beauty. 

I  have  made  him  fair  by  the  multitude  of  his 
branches:  so  that  all  the  trees  of  Eden,  that  were  in 
the  garden  of  God,  envied  him. 

Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  God;  Because  thou 
hast  lifted  up  thyself  in  height,  and  he  hath  shot 
up  his  top  among  the  thick  boughs,  and  his  heart 
is  lifted  up  in  his  height; 

I  have  therefore  delivered  him  into  the  hand 
of  the  mighty  one  of  the  heathen;  he  shall  surely 


262  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

deal  with  him:  I  have  driven  him  out  for  his 
wickedness. 

And  strangers,  the  terrible  of  the  nations,  have 
cut  him  off,  and  have  left  him:  upon  the  moun- 
tains and  in  all  the  valleys  his  branches  are  fallen, 
and  his  boughs  are  broken  by  all  the  rivers  of  the 
land;  and  all  the  people  of  the  earth  are  gone 
down  from  his  shadow,  and  have  left  him. 

I  made  the  nations  to  shake  at  the  sound  of  his 
fall,  when  I  cast  him  down  to  hell  with  them  that 
descend  into  the  pit :  and  all  the  trees  of  Eden,  the 
choice  and  best  of  Lebanon,  all  that  drink  water, 
shall  be  comforted  in  the  nether  parts  of  the  earth.  ^ 

Here  though  the  description  is  still  of  the  nature  of 
a  laboriously  expanded  figure  of  speech,  it  borders 
on  the  nature  of  conscious  allegory. 

In  ZecJiariah  ir-viii  also  the  preponderant  impor- 
tance of  the  visions  points  to  an  increasing  elaboration 
in  the  outward  form  of  the  prophecy,  which  must 
have  helped  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  visions  of  the 
apocalypses : 

And  I  turned,  and  lifted  up  mine  eyes,  and 
looked,  and,  behold,  there  came  four  chariots  out 
from  between  two  mountains;  and  the  mountains 
were  mountains  of  brass. 

In  the  first  chariot  were  red  horses;  and  in  the 
second  chariot  black  horses; 

Ezek.  xxxi,  3-12,  16. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  263 

And  in  the  third  chariot  white  horses;  and  in  the 
fourth  chariot  grisled  and  bay  horses. 

Then  I  answered  and  said  unto  the  angel  that 
talked  with  me,  What  are  these,  my  lord? 

And  the  angel  answered  and  said  unto  me, 
These  are  the  four  spirits  of  the  heavens,  which 
go  forth  from  standing  before  the  Lord  of  all  the 
earth. 

The  black  horses  which  are  therein  go  forth 
into  the  north  country;  and  the  white  go  forth 
after  them;  and  the  grisled  go  forth  toward  the 
south  country. 

And  the  bay  went  forth,  and  sought  to  go  that 
they  might  walk  to  and  fro  through  the  earth: 
and  he  said,  Get  you  hence,  walk  to  and  fro  through 
the  earth.  So  they  walked  to  and  fro  through  the 
earth. 

Then  cried  he  upon  me,  and  spake  unto  me, 
saying,  Behold,  these  that  go  toward  the  north 
country  have  quieted  my  spirit  in  the  north 
country.  1 

Here  though  the  vision  itself  has  great  suggestive 
power,  the  message  conveyed  through  it  is  disappoint- 
ing, for  it  is  concerned  only  with  the  choice  of  a 
high  priest  and  his  aides  for  the  rebuilding  of  the 
Temple.  So  also  the  great  vision  of  Ezekiel  of  the 
rebuilding  of  the  Temple  shows  how  deliberately  the 
form  of  the  vision  can  be  used  for  a  purely  expository 

»  Zech.  vi.  1-8. 


264  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

purpose.  It  is  only  a  short  step  from  these  half 
consciously  elaborated  visions  from  the  time  when 
the  prophecy  was  fading  away  to  the  laboriously 
invented  visions  of  Daniel  and  Esdras. 


Ill 


On  the  other  hand  the  apocalypses  in  their  purpose 
and  in  the  ideas  which  they  brought  into  effective 
bearing  on  the  life  of  the  Jews  kept  alight  the  torch 
of  faith  handed  down  by  the  prophets.  As  a  class 
the  apocalypses  sprang  from  persecution.  They 
brought  comfort  to  Jews^  and  in  later  times  to 
Christians,  in  the  bitter  throes  of  distress,  strengthen- 
ing their  spirit  by  the  promise  of  recompense  in  the 
everlasting  bliss  of  paradise.  This  background  of 
suffering  is  more  explicitly  outlined  in  2  Esdras  than 
in  either  Daniel  or  Revelation: 

And  after  seven  days  so  it  was,  that  the  thoughts 
of  my  heart  were  very  grievous  unto  me  again, 

And  my  soul  recovered  the  spirit  of  understand- 
ing, and  I  began  to  talk  with  the  most  High  again. 

And  said,  O  Lord  that  bearest  rule,  of  every 
wood  of  the  earth,  and  of  all  the  trees  thereof, 
thou  hast  chosen  thee  one  only  vine: 

And  of  all  lands  of  the  whole  world  thou  hast 
chosen  thee  one  pit:  and  of  all  the  flowers  thereof 
one  lily: 


THE  APOCALYPSE  265 

And  of  all  the  depths  of  the  sea  thou  hast  filled 
thee  one  river:  and  of  all  builded  cities  thou  hast 
hallowed  Sion  unto  thyself: 

And  of  all  the  fowls  that  are  created  thou  hast 
named  thee  one  dove :  and  of  all  the  cattle  that  are 
made  thou  hast  provided  thee  one  sheep: 

And  among  all  the  multitudes  of  people  thou 
has  gotten  thee  one  people:  and  unto  this  people, 
whom  thou  lovedst,  thou  gavest  a  law  that  is  ap- 
proved of  all. 

And  now,  O  Lord,  why  hast  thou  given  this  one 
people  over  unto  many?  and  upon  the  one  root 
hast  thou  prepared  others,  and  why  hast  thou 
scattered  thy  only  one  people  among  many? 

And  they  which  did  gainsay  thy  promises,  and 
believed  not  thy  covenants,  have  trodden  them 
down. 

If  thou  didst  so  much  hate  thy  people,  yet 
shouldest  thou  punish  them  with  thine  own  hands.^ 

For  thou  seest  that  our  sanctuary  is  laid  waste, 
our  altar  broken  down,  our  temple  destroyed; 

Our  psaltery  is  laid  on  the  ground,  our  song  is 
put  to  silence,  our  rejoicing  is  at  an  end,  the  light 
of  our  candlestick  is  put  out,  the  ark  of  our  cove- 
nant is  spoiled,  our  holy  things  are  defiled,  and 
the  name  that  is  called  upon  us  is  almost  pro- 
faned: our  children  are  put  to  shame,  our  priests 
are  burnt,  our  Levites  have  gone  into  captivity, 
our  virgins  are  defiled,  and  our  wives  ravished; 
our  righteous  men  carried  away,  our  little  ones 
^  2  Esdras  v.  21-30. 


266  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

destroyed,  our  young  men  are  brought  in  bondage, 
and  our  strong  men  are  become  weak; 

And,  which  is  the  greatest  of  all,  the  seal  of 
Sion,  hath  now  lost  her  honour;  for  she  is  delivered 
into  the  hands  of  them  that  hate  us.^ 

Such  a  situation  of  apparent  despair  for  their  re- 
ligion all  these  seers  of  the  later  time  faced  in  the 
same  manner  as  Amos  and  Hosea  and  Isaiah  faced 
the  overwhelming  of  Israel  by  the  Assyrians,  and 
as  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile  faced  the  casting  down 
of  the  hope  of  Judah  by  the  Babylonians.  Just 
as  they  rose  above  the  dilemma  on  which  their  re- 
ligion seemed  inevitably  wrecked  to  a  higher  and 
larger  truth,  so  did  these  seers  of  the  later  time 
rise  to  the  perception  of  immortality  and  the  bless- 
ing of  paradise.     Daniel  declares: 

And  many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the 
earth  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and 
some  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt. 

And  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  bright- 
ness of  the  firmament;  and  they  that  turn  many 
to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever.^ 

And  the  book  describes  in  terms  of  mystical  splendor 
the  glories  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven : 

I  beheld  till  the  thrones  were  east  down,  and  the 
Ancient  of  days  did  sit,  whose  garment  was  white 

^  2  Esdras  x.  21-23.  '  Dan.  xii.  2-3. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  267 

as  snow,  and  the  hair  of  his  head  Uke  the  pure 
wool;  his  throne  was  Uke  the  fiery  flame,  and  his 
wheels  as  burning  fire. 

A  fiery  stream  issued  and  came  forth  from  before 
him;  thousand  thousands  ministered  unto  him, 
and  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  stood  before 
him:  the  judgment  was  set,  and  the  books  were 
opened. 

I  saw  in  the  night  visions,  and,  behold,  one  like 
the  Son  of  man  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven, 
and  came  to  the  Ancient  of  days,  and  they  brought 
him  near  before  him. 

And  there  was  given  him  dominion,  and  glory, 
and  a  kingdom,  that  all  peoples,  nations,  and 
languages,  should  serve  him:  his  dominion  is  an 
everlasting  dominion,  which  shall  not  pass  away, 
and  his  kingdom  that  which  shall  not  be  destroyed.^ 

Here  the  full  organ  music  of  such  words  as  "  his 
throne  was  like  the  fiery  flame  "  and  the  "  thousand 
times  ten  thousand,"  and  the  half  apprehensible  im- 
agery stir  the  imagination  with  intimations  of  the 
immortal  world. 

That  Revelation  belongs  to  the  same  class  of  lit- 
erature as  Daniel,  is  obvious,  but  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  though  it  has  in  part  the  same  imagery, 
it  shows  greater  richness  of  imaginative  power  and 
less  literal  prolixity  in  the  use  of  the  machinery  of  the 
»  Dan.  vii.  9-10,  13-14. 


268  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

visions.  The  general  scheme  of  the  unfolding  of  the 
seventh  seal  into  the  seven  trumpets,  and  of  the  seven 
trumpets  preparing  the  way  for  the  seven  vials,  in 
spite  of  a  certain  superficial  confusion  resulting  from 
the  rush  of  the  writer's  feeling,  is  carried  out  to  a 
conclusion.  At  each  stage  the  author,  before  passing 
on  to  the  judgment  on  the  powers  of  evil,  pauses  to 
declare  a  glorious  vision  of  God  and  the  blessedness  of 
the  saints  and  martyrs ;  and  the  seventh  seal  and  the 
seventh  trumpet  involve  all  that  follows  them.  Into 
this  structure  the  author  has  worked  earlier  oracles 
and  visions,  and  their  diversity  accounts  for  the  effect 
of  overwhelming  confusion  that  is  apt  to  be  one's 
first  impression  of  the  book.  The  dominant  idea, 
however,  is  the  final  blessedness  and  reward  of  the 
saints  and  martyrs ;  and  the  description  of  the  ISTew 
Jerusalem  is  the  actual  climax  towards  which  the 
whole  book  leads. 

In  language  Revelation  is  clothed  with  associations 
gathered  from  almost  all  parts  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  especially  from  the  largest  and  most  suggestive 
passages  of  the  prophets.  The  vision  of  God  in 
Chapter  iv  is  based  on  the  visions  of  Isaiah  vi  and 
Ezehiel  i  and  x;  the  four  living  beings  are  taken 
over  directly  from  Ezehiel  i;  the  four  horsemen  in 
the  first  four  seals  in  Chapter  vi  lead  back  to  the 
four    chariots    in   the    passage    which    I    have    just 


THE  APOCALYPSE  269 

quoted  from  ZecJiariah ;  and  the  judgment  in  Chap- 
ter vi  described  in  terms  of  storm,  earthquake  and 
volcano,  recalls  many  passages  like  Isaiah  ii  and 
Zephaniah  and  Joel.  Again,  the  language  and  the 
imagery  of  Chapter  xiv  are  almost  wholly  taken  from 
the  prophets :  "  Babylon  is  fallen  "  from  Isaiah  xxi, 
the  cup  of  the  wrath  of  the  Lord  from  Jeremiah  xxv, 
the  putting  in  of  the  sickle  from  Joel  Hi ;  and  much 
of  the  imagery  of  the  Xew  Jerusalem  is  drawn  from 
Ezekiel  and  from  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile.  In  spite  of 
all  these  borrowings,  however,  the  author  of  Revela- 
tion welds  all  that  he  has  taken  into  the  expression  of 
his  own  purpose ;  he  has  his  own  vision  of  the  strug- 
gle of  the  powers  of  this  world  against  the  Lord  of 
hosts;  and  though  he  uses  the  words  and  figures  of 
other  men  to  shadow  it  forth,  he  does  so  without  let- 
ting their  words  draw  him  aside  from  his  own  pur- 
pose, xlccordingly  there  is  no  effect  of  patchwork,  of 
a  man  of  a  less  power  using  the  work  of  greater  men 
than  himself;  the  greater  power  is  here  and  the  bor- 
rowings are  fused  by  the  heat  of  the  writer's  own 
thought.  On  the  other  hand,  the  connotation  of  this 
imagery  for  all  Jewish  Christian  readers  would  have 
included  all  the  holiest  associations  of  their  religion, 
just  as  for  us  it  helps  to  fuse  Old  Testament  and 
Xew  into  a  single  memory.  Thus  the  power  of  the 
most  exalted  and  spiritual  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 


270  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

ment  clothes  as  with  a  halo  of  richly  colored  light 
these  new  hopes  and  promises  of  the  Christian  faith ; 
and  Revelation  becomes^  as  it  were,  a  summary  of 
the  spiritual  force  of  the  Old  Testament,  brought  to- 
gether into  a  single  book  with  a  new  and  even  more 
exalted  meaning. 


IVi 


Yet  when  one  considers  these  descriptions  of 
Heaven  and  of  the  Almighty  carefully  and  tries  to 
visualize  what  is  described,  one  sees  that  there  is 
no  real  hold  on  concrete  and  present  fact:  all  that 
most  touches  one's  imagination  resolves  itself  into  a 
vague  blaze  of  glory  which  defies  every  effort  to  dis- 
tinguish its  outlines.  Even,  the  great  Italian 
painters  failed  when  they  put  such  descriptions  as 
these  into  visual  form.  Daniel  itself  asserts  the  inef- 
fableness  of  this  glory: 

And  I  Daniel  alone  saw  the  vision:  for  the  men 
that  were  with  me  saw  not  the  vision;  but  a  great 
quaking  fell  upon  them,  so  that  they  fled  to  hide 
themselves. 

Therefore  I  was  left  alone,  and  saw  this  great 
vision,  and  there  remained  no  strength  in  me:  for 
my  comeliness  was  turned  in  me  into  corruption, 
and  I  retained  no  strength.^ 
» Dan.  X.  7-9. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  271 

So  in  Revelation^  though  the  descriptions  seem  so 
specific,  yet  it  is  impossible  to  visualize  them.  The 
picture  of  the  Xew  Jerusalem,  which  is  seemingly 
phrased  in  terms  of  sight,  cannot  be  put  together: 

And  the  twelve  gates  were  twelve  pearls;  every 
several  gate  was  of  one  pearl :  and  the  street  of  the 
city  was  pure  gold,  as  it  were  transparent  glass. 

And  I  saw  no  temple  therein:  for  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  it. 

And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of 
the  moon,  to  shine  in  it:  for  the  glory  of  God  did 
lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof,  i 

And  he  showed  me  a  pure  river  of  water  of  life, 
clear  as  crystal,  proceeding  out  of  the  throne  of 
God  and  of  the  Lamb. 

In  the  midst  of  the  street  of  it,  and  on  either 
side  of  the  river,  was  there  the  tree  of  life,  which 
bare  twelve  manner  of  fruits,  and  yielded  her  fruit 
every  month:  and  the  leaves  of  the  tree  were  for 
the  healing  of  the  nations. 

And  there  shall  be  no  night  there;  and  they  need 
no  candle,  neither  light  of  the  sun;  for  the  Lord 
God  giveth  them  light:  and  they  shall  reign  for 
ever  and  ever.^ 

No  effort  to  make  a  mental  picture  of  these  splendors 

will  leave  any  definite  impression:  the  effect  is  only 

of  an  overwhelming  glory  and  of  a  blessedness  which 

»  Rev.  xxi.  21-23.  ^  i^id.,  xxii.  1-2,  5. 


272  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

passes  man's  understanding.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  imagery  is  material,  the  effect  is  wholly  im- 
material and  ideal. 

In  this  power  of  the  prophecies  and  the  apocalypse 
to  communicate  the  sense  of  glories  which  are  real, 
and  yet  impalpable,  to  give  us  a  fleeting  glimpse  of 
unseen  realities  beyond  the  apprehension  of  our  pres- 
ent faculties,  we  come,  I  think,  to  the  inner  essence 
and  power  of  this  biblical  literature  of  which  the 
prophecy  and  the  apocalypse  are  the  most  typical  por- 
tion. When  one  thinks  of  the  serenity  of  the  Greek 
representations  of  the  gods  beside  these  visions  of 
the  Hebrew  and  Christian  seers,  the  latter  at  first 
may  seem  confused  and  turgid.  Then  as  one  thinks 
it  over  the  very  clarity  and  definiteness  of  outline  in 
those  wonderful  marbles  stand  out  as  a  limitation: 
in  comparison  with  these  vague  and  mystical  imagin- 
ings of  the  Christian  seers  the  representations  of 
Greek  art  are  impotent.  In  the  end  the  Greek  statue 
of  a  god,  for  all  its  gracious  beauty,  is  only  a  glori- 
fied and  idealized  man.  The  visions  of  the  apoca- 
lypse, on  the  other  hand,  transcend  once  for  all  the 
limitations  of  human  nature:  and  frankly  soar- 
ing away  from  the  capacities  of  human  thought,  they 
are  enabled  to  give  such  glimpses  of  the  other  world 
as  are  possible  for  beings  who  must  for  the  present 
see  through  a  glass  darkly.     Thus  even  in  literature 


THE  APOCALYPSE  273 

one  feels  that  the  prohibition,  ^'  Thou  shalt  not  make 
unto  thee  any  graven  image,  or  any  likeness  of  any- 
thing that  is  in  heaven  above  or  that  is  in  the  earth 
beneath,  or  that  is  in  the  water  under  the  earth,'^ 
produced  unique  results;  for  the  Jewish  mind  and 
the  Christian  mind  have  never  limited  the  godhead 
to  visible  form. 


A  student  of  literature  cannot  go  far  in  the 
explanation  of  such  illimitably  suggestive  power  of 
infinite  things  as  has  made  these  visions  of  Revela- 
tion so  fitting  a  climax  to  our  Bible;  but  I  may  recall 
the  fact  that  I  pointed  out  in  my  discussion  of  the 
poetry  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  the  expression  of 
emotion  depends  largely  on  a  concrete  vocabulary, 
and  still  more  on  the  rhythmical  and  musical  attri- 
butes of  style.  This  conclusion  is  borne  out  by  the 
most  eloquent  parts  of  St.  Paul's  epistles,  where  as 
we  have  seen  he  rises  spontaneously  and  inevitably 
into  figurative  language,  and  thus  is  enabled  to  record 
the  glimpses  of  ineffable  truths  and  blessedness  which 
are  so  characteristic  of  him.  Xow  when  we  examine 
the  language  of  these  passages  of  Revelation,  we  find 
that  they  also  are  full  of  words  for  the  great  forces 
of  nature  before  which  man  is  impotent : 


274  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

And  the  temple  of  God  was  opened  in  heaven, 
and  there  was  seen  in  his  temple  the  ark  of  his 
testament:  and  there  were  lightnings,  and  voices, 
and  thunderings,  and  an  earthquake,  and  great 
hail. 

And  I  looked,  and  behold  a  pale  horse:  and  his 
name  that  sat  on  him  was  Death,  and  Hell  followed 
with  him.  And  power  was  given  unto  them  over 
the  fourth  part  of  the  earth,  to  kill  with  sword, 
and  with  hunger,  and  with  death,  and  with  the 
beasts  of  the  earth. 

And  thus  I  saw  the  horses  in  the  vision,  and 
them  that  sat  on  them,  having  breastplates  of 
fire,  and  of  jacinth,  and  brimstone:  and  the  heads 
of  the  horses  were  as  the  heads  of  lions;  and  out 
of  their  mouths  issued  fire  and  smoke  and  brim- 
stone. 

By  these  three  was  the  third  part  of  men  killed, 
by  the  fire,  and  by  the  smoke,  and  by  the  brim- 
stone, which  issued  out  of  their  mouths.^ 

All  the  explanations  of  science  cannot  raise  mankind 
above  the  terrors  of  such  powers  as  these:  reason  is 
futile  in  the  presence  of  sudden  death ;  and  the  words 
which  bring  it  vividly  before  us  meet  a  response 
which  is  all  the  more  powerful  in  that  it  is  in- 
stinctive. 

In  another  class  of  words  used  in  both  Revelation 
iRev.  xi.  19;  vi.  8;  ix.  17-18. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  275 

and  by  St.  Paul  the  force  depends  even  less  on  any 
definable  meaning.    Consider  the  following  passages : 

There  are  also  celestial  bodies,  and  bodies 
terrestrial :  but  the  glory  of  the  celestial  is  one,  and 
the  glory  of  the  terrestrial  is  another. 

There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and  another  glory 
of  the  moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars:  for 
one  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory. 

So  also  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.^ 

And  all  the  angels  stood  round  about  the  throne, 
and  about  the  elders  and  the  four  beasts,  and  fell 
before  the  throne  on  their  faces,  and  worshipped 
God, 

Saying,  Amen:  Blessing,  and  glory,  and  wisdom, 
and  thanksgiving,  and  honour,  and  power,  and 
might,  be  unto  our  God  for  ever  and  ever.    Amen.^ 

That  part  of  the  meaning  of  the  words  which  counts 
in  such  bursts  of  eloquence  cannot  be  set  forth  in  a 
dictionary,  for  their  denotation, — their  absolute  and 
tangible  meaning, — is  as  nothing  beside  their  conno- 
tation,— the  cloud  of  implications,  associations,  sug- 
gestions, which  float  through  our  minds  at  their  call. 
They  stand  for  purely  emotional  affections  of  the 
mind,  for  large  and  deep  stirrings  of  the  soul  which 
are  as  real  and  as  indefinable  as  the  soul  itself.  If 
there  be  a  man  whose  soul  does  not  respond  to  such 
1 1  Cor.  XV.  40-42.  2  Rev.  vii.  11-12. 


276  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

words  as  honor,  nohle,  glory,  one  can  do  nothing  to 
help  him:  such  emotions  are  even  less  rational  than 
other  emotions,  and  therefore  less  susceptible  of  ex- 
planation or  proof;  and  being  so  they  lie  at  the 
roots  of  human  nature. 

This  inimitably  suggestive  power  of  the  words  is 
made  even  more  deeply  and  largely  expressive  by  the 
music  of  the  style ;  not  only  in  the  English  but  also 
in  the  Greek  and  in  the  Latin,  the  most  impressive 
passages  of  Revelation  are  dominated  by  the  same 
general  sounds,  the  long,  open  vowels  and  the  liquid, 
singing  consonants.  Here  is  an  example  from  Reve- 
lation, in  the  English  and  in  the  Latin: 

And  the  four  beasts  had  each  of  them  six  wings 
about  him;  and  they  were  full  of  eyes  within:  and 
they  rest  not  day  and  night,  saying,  Holy,  holy, 
holy,  Lord  God  Almighty,  which  was,  and  is,  and 
is  to  come. 

And  when  those  beasts  give  glory  and  honour  and 
thanks  to  him  that  sat  on  the  throne,  who  liveth 
for  ever  and  ever, 

The  four  and  twenty  elders  fall  down  before  him 
that  sat  on  the  throne,  and  worship  him  that  liveth 
for  ever  and  ever,  and  cast  their  crowns  before  the 
throne,  saying, 

Thou  art  worthy,  O  Lord,  to  receive  glory  and 
honour  and  power:  for  thou  hast  created  all  things, 
and  for  thy  pleasure  they  are  and  were  created.^ 
1  Rev.  iv.  8-11. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  277 

Et  quatuor  animalia,  singula  eorum,  habebant 
alas  senas,  et  in  circuitu  et  intus  plena  sunt  oculis; 
et  requiem  non  habebant  die  ac  nocte,  dicentia: 
Sanctus,  Sanctus,  Sanctus,  Dominus  Deus  omnip- 
otens,  qui  erat,  et  qui  est,  et  qui  venturus  est. 

Et  cum  darent  ilia  animalia  gloriam  et  honorem, 
et  benedictionem  sedenti  super  thronum,  viventi 
in  saecula  saeculorum, 

Procidebant  viginti  quatuor  seniores  ante  seden- 
tem  in  throno,  et  adorabant  viventem  in  saecula 
saeculorum,  et  mittebant  coronas  suas  ante 
•    thronum  dicentes: 

Dignus  es,  Domine  Deus  noster,  accipere  gloriam, 
et  honorem  et  virtutem,  quia  tu  creasti  omnia,  et 
propter  voluntatem  tuam  erant,  et  creata  sunt. 

These  passages,  with  many  others  like  them  in  the 
prophets,  in  Daniel  and  in  Revelation,  illustrate  the 
truth  of  literature  which  has  been  set  forth  by  Pro- 
fessor James  in  his  discussion  of  mysticism ; 

'^  In  mystical  literature  such  self-contradictory 
phrases  as  '  dazzling  obscurity,'  '  whispering  silence/ 
'  teeming  desert,'  are  continually  met  with.  They  prove 
that  not  conceptual  speech,  but  music  rather,  is  the 
element  through  which  we  are  best  spoken  to  by  mys- 
tical truth.  Many  mystical  scriptures  are  indeed  little 
more  than  musical  compositions."  Then  after  quoting 
an  unintelligible  passage  from  Madame  Blavatsky  he 
goes  on,  ^'  These  words,  if  they  do  not  awaken  laughter 
as  you  receive  them,  probably  stir  chords  within  you 
which  music  and  language  touch  in  common.     Music 


278  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

gives  us  ontological  messages  which  non-musical  criti- 
cism is  unable  to  contradict,  though  it  may  laugh  at  our 
foolishness  in  minding  them.  There  is  a  verge  of  the 
mind  which  these  things  haunt;  and  whispers  therefrom 
mingle  with  the  operations  of  our  understanding,  even 
as  the  waters  of  the  infinite  ocean  send  their  waves  to 
break  among  the  pebbles  that  lie  upon  our  shores//  ^ 


yi 


With  these  fine  words  we  may  take  our  leave  of 
the  different  types  of  literature  in  the  Bible,  before 
passing  on  to  consider  how  such  large  and  noble  qual- 
ities as  we  have  been  considering  not  only  survived 
the  process  of  translation,  but  in  our  English  Bible 
almost  gained  new  power.  But  before  so  passing  on 
it  is  worth  while  to  stop  for  a  moment  to  point  out  in 
how  real  a  way  Revelation  embodies  and  exemplifies 
the  attributes  and  qualities  which  in  English  litera- 
ture are  peculiarly  biblical. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  narrative  the  especial 
virtues,  which  have  been  so  marvellous  a  preservative 
against  the  inroads  of  oblivion,  are  the  simplicity  and 
the  concreteness ;  that  in  these  stories  solid  fact  fol- 
lows solid  fact  with  no  intrusion  of  the  writer's  inter- 
pretation of  their  meaning.  So  likewise  with  the  po- 
*  W.  James,  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p,  421. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  279 

etry:  what  distinguishes  that  from  everything  else 
in  English  literature  is  the  undiluted  concreteness 
which  it  took  from  the  Hebrew,  and  which  makes  it 
the  immediate  expression  of  the  emotions;  and  this 
expressiveness  is  reinforced  by  the  strong  rhythm 
and  music,  which  are  an  even  more  direct  expression 
of  emotion.  The  wisdom  of  the  Old  Testament  we 
have  seen  to  be  wholly  intuitive,  and  therefore 
dependent  on  feeling  rather  than  on  intellectual 
processes ;  and  even  in  the  epistles  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, where  we  come  nearest  to  the  rigorously  ab- 
stract reasoning  of  the  modern  w^orld,  the  most  mem- 
orable parts,  for  literature  at  any  rate,  are  the  bursts 
of  eloquence  which  soar  off  in  impassioned  figures  to 
regions  where  reason  must  give  place  to  intuition. 
The  prophecy  at  its  height  shows  the  complete  fusion 
of  understanding  and  feeling,  the  latter  expressed  in 
the  strong  rhythm  of  the  poetical  form  and  in  the 
nobly  figurative  language  of  the  oracles.  Then  as 
the  outward  form  of  the  prophecy  broke  up,  where 
the  element  of  feeling  faded  out  the  gift  of  prophecy 
itself  seems  to  have  failed :  where  the  feeling  prepon- 
derated prophecy  merged  insensibly  into  the  apoca- 
lypse, through  which  its  spirit  was  perpetuated  into 
Christianity.  In  all  these  forms,  therefore,  the  ap- 
peal is  through  the  feelings  and  by  way  of  intuition 
to  our  perception  of  the  deeper   and  larger  truths 


280  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

which  defy  delimitation  by  the  intellectual  processes 
of  reasoning. 

Revelation  surpasses  all  the  other  books  of  the 
Bible  in  its  frank  self-abandonment  to  the  great 
realms  of  feeling  and  instinctive  reactions  which 
surround  on  every  side  the  little  region  of  experi- 
ence which  has  been  mapped  by  the  intellect.  Its 
language  has  no  meaning  to  the  type  of  mind  which 
must  find  a  literal  and  consistent  meaning  in  all 
it  reads.  Scholars  find  in  the  beast  with  the  seven 
head  and  ten  horns  data  which  enable  them  to  set- 
tle with  some  certainty  the  period  of  the  book ;  and  in 
the  great  red  dragon  and  in  some  other  parts  of  the 
imagery  a  transfiguration  of  the  mythology  of  As- 
syria and  Chaldea  and  the  primitive  ancestors  of  the 
Jews.  But  a  minute's  consideration  will  show  that 
the  cool  and  dispassionate  study  which  has  rescued 
such  facts  as  these  from  so  tumultuous  a  rush  of 
mystical  emotion  is  a  very  different  frame  of  mind 
from  that  of  the  reader  who,  abandoning  all  idea 
that  the  book  is  explicable  in  the  terms  of  this  pres- 
ent world,  bathes  his  soul  in  its  portrayal  of  the  glo- 
ries of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth.  To  take 
the  book  and  all  its  imagery  literally,  on  the  other 
hand,  would  be  like  attempting  to  recite  in  a  literal 
sense  such  a  hymn  as'  "  There  is  a  fountain  filled 
with  blood,"  or  even  "  Onward,  Christian  soldiers '' : 


THE   APOCALYPSE  281 

religious  emotion  is  not  expressed  by  the  denotation 
of  words,  but  by  their  higher  connotations,  and  by  the 
purely  sensuous  qualities  of  music.  Undoubtedly 
there  are  people,  and  deeply  religious  people,  whom 
Revelation  leaves  cold  and  unmoved ;  for  there  are 
many  people  whose  temperaments  incline  them  toward 
the  cooler  services  of  the  Puritan  churches  rather 
than  to  the  rich  and  luxuriant  liturgies  of  the  medie- 
val church  and  of  the  Church  of  Rome  to-day.  Even 
such  people,  however,  can  intellectually  apprehend 
how  the  deepest  appeal  of  the  Bible,  from  the  side 
of  literature  at  any  rate,  is  through  the  super-rational 
feelings  of  awe  and  reverence.  The  hold  of  all  great 
religious  literature  is  on  the  emotional  side  of  hu- 
man nature,  and  the  exclusively  religious  tempera- 
ment seems  always  to  have  a  large  strain  of  mysti- 
cism. Our  English  Bible  would  not  be  what  it  is 
if  it  did  not  in  all  its  parts  through  the  large  sug- 
gestions and  associations  of  its  vocabulary  and  the 
surging  music  of  its  style  enrich  its  message  with 
these  overtones  of  meaning;  and  in  Revelation  for 
those  who  have  ears  to  hear  these  illimitable  mean- 
ings dominate  all  others. 


CHAPTEE   VIII 

THE    TRANSLATION 
I 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  the  distinct  types 
of  literature  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  English 
Bible ;  in  discussing  them  I  have  tried  to  throw  light 
on  their  form  and  other  characteristics  by  some  of  the 
facts  that  have  been  gathered  concerning  their  prob- 
able source  and  history.  These  facts,  which  have 
been  collected  and  arranged  by  the  science  which  is 
technically  known  as  the  Introduction  to  the  Old  Tes- 
tament and  the  New  Testament  or  as  the  Higher 
Criticism,  show  that  the  various  books  of  the  Bible, 
especially  those  of  the  Old  Testament,  are  of  various 
origin,  and  sometimes  of  a  kind  of  compilation  un- 
known to  us  to-day.  To  understand  how  much  per- 
spective there  is  in  these  books  and  how  illuminating 
that  perspective  is  one  must  follow  out  a  considerable 
course  of  study  in  this  subject :  in  such  an  essay  as  this 
I  have  been  able  only  to  refer  to  results  which  scholars 
have  reached  after  long  and  devoted  labor,     l^ow,  in 

282 


THE  TRANSLATION  283 

order  to  lead  on  to  a  study  and  understanding  of 
the  literary  character  of  the  English  Bible  as  a 
whole  I  must  sketch  first  the  processes  by  which 
all  these  separate  books  became  one  book ;  and  then 
the  various  stages  of  translation  and  revision  which 
ended  in  the  Authorised  Version,  otherwise  known  as 
the  King  James  Bible.  This  is  for  English  litera- 
ture, in  our  times  at  any  rate,  the  form  in  which  the 
Bible  stands  as  the  great  monument  of  English 
literature. 

To  understand  the  literary  character  of  this  great 
translation  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  a  translation, 
and  that  at  the  same  time  it  has,  what  one  hardly 
looks  for  in  a  translation  made  to-day,  unequalled 
vitality  and  freshness  of  expression.  It  is  one  of  the 
few  examples  in  English  of  a  translation  which  is 
complete  on  both  sides;  for  it  renders  not  only  the 
meaning  of  the  single  words  and  sentences,  for  the 
most  part  with  great  accuracy,  but  it  communicates 
to  us  also  the  spirit  and  vigor  of  the  original.  In 
other  words,  it  not  only  gives  us  the  denotation  of 
the  books  which  it  translates,  but  it  clothes  its  own 
language  with  the  rich  connotation  of  the  original 
and  with  the  less  definable  but  no  less  potent  expres- 
sive power  of  sound.  Our  study  of  the  power  of  the 
Bible  in  English  literature  would  be  incomplete  if 
we  did  not  at  least  make  an  effort  to  find  some  of 


284  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  causes  for  this  especial  success  of  the  Authorised 
Version. 

I  will  begin  the  consideration  of  this  part  of  the 
subject  by  bringing  together  a  few  facts  about  the  col- 
lection of  the  original  books  into  a  single  book,  and 
then,  before  going  on  to  discuss  the  actual  translation 
into  English,  consider  briefly  two  intermediate  trans- 
lations which  have  had  some  influence  on  the  pres- 
ent form  of  the  English. 


II 


The  collection  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  of  the  New  Testament,  which  were  so  varied  in 
origin  and  date  and  character,  into  a  single  book 
thought  of  as  "  the  Scriptures  "  occupied  a  consider- 
able length  of  time  and  was  the  result  of  processes 
which  can  be  traced  only  vaguely.  We  know  that  by 
the  end  of  the  first  century  a.d.  the  Jews  of  Pales- 
tine accepted  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  as  we 
read  them  in  the  English  Bible,  and  that  by  the  end 
of  the  second  century  a.d.  the  books  of  the  'New 
Testament,  nearly  as  w^e  have  them,  were  accepted  by 
the  Christians.  In  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament 
the  Greek-speaking  Jews  admitted  more  books  into 
the  Scriptures  than  did  the  Jews  of  Palestine,  and 
in  the  case  of  the  New  Testament  the  Eastern  and 


THE  TRANSLATION  285 

Western  Churches  differed  on  the  acceptance  of  Rev- 
elation and  some  of  the  Catholic  Epistles.  But  the 
idea  of  a  closed  list  of  books  which  alone  should  be 
considered  the  inspired  word  of  God,  and  in  the  main 
the  list  of  the  books  which  were  to  be  so  accepted, 
were  established  at  these  dates. 

In  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament  this  acceptance 
of  a  definite  set  of  books  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others 
came  about  in  three  stages  of  growth  which  are  re- 
flected in  the  well-kno^vn  phrase  ^'  The  Law,  the 
Prophets,  and  the  Writings."  The  first  stage  in  this 
acceptance  of  certain  books  as  an  authoritative  state- 
ment of  the  will  of  Jehovah  above  and  beyond  all 
other  books  goes  back  ultimately  to  the  discovery  and 
promulgation  of  the  original  Deuteronomy  by  Josiah 
in  621  B.C.  When  that  book  was  once  accepted  as 
authoritatively  stating  the  covenant  between  Jehovah 
and  his  people,  it  undoubtedly  acquired  a  veneration 
different  from  that  of  all  other  books.  It  was  now 
thought  of  as  "  the  Law."  During  the  Exile  this  idea 
of  a  definite  statement  by  Jehovah  of  the  Law  which 
his  chosen  people  were  to  fulfil  was  developed  and 
crystallized  by  the  priests;  and  aft^r  the  reforms  of 
Ezra  and  Xehemiah  Deuteronomy  was  merged  in  the 
larger,  more  comprehensive,  and  more  fully  developed 
book  of  law  and  history  which  we  know  as  the  Pen- 
tateuch.   Henceforth  the  Law  became  the  central  and 


286  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

dominant  fact  in  the  religion  of  the  Jews  and  in  their 
Scriptures.  The  Pentateuch^  which  arose  from  the 
amalgamation  of  the  history  of  the  world  and  of  the 
people  of  Israel  down  to  the  final  giving  of  the  Law 
through  Moses^  was  known  to  the  Jews  as  the  "  five- 
fifths  of  the  Law  '^ ;  and  it  maintained  a  sanctity  and 
authority  above  all  other  parts  of  the  Scriptures. 

The  other  two  layers  of  the  canon,  as  the  technical 
term  is,  gradually  came  into  existence  through  a 
process  of  growth  which  we  can  understand  only  by 
inference  from  a  few  scattered  facts.  We  know  that 
by  the  second  century  b.c.  the  Jews  were  accustomed 
to  speak  of  '^  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,"  and  that  the 
books  of  the  prophets  were  quoted  by  a  formula  which 
implied  that  they  were  now  recognised  as  part  of  the 
Scriptures.  These  books  of  the  prophets  included 
for  the  Jews  the  Former  Prophets,  which  are  our 
books  of  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings,  and 
the  Latter  Prophets,  which  are  our  books  of  the 
prophets — Isaiah^  Jeremiah^  EzeJciel^  and  The 
Twelve.  The  reason  that  these  historical  books  were 
included  in  ^'  The  Prophets  "  lay  in  the  fact  that 
their  composition  was  controlled  by  the  prophetic  the- 
ory of  history  set  forth  by  Deuteronomy.  All  these 
books  must  have  assumed  their  place  beside  the  Law 
because  they  were  looked  on  either  as  illustrations  of 
the  working  of  the  Law  in  the  history  of  Israel  or 


THE  TRANSLATION  287 

else  as  parallel  and  equally  direct  declarations  of  the 
will  of  Jehovah.  Thus  they  too  came  to  be  consid- 
ered as  standing  apart  from  all  other  books  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  peculiar  and  sacred  authority. 

The  final  stage  in  the  building  up  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  even  more  obscure  in  its  history:  we  know 
little  more  than  the  fact  that  by  the  time  th6  ^ew 
Testament  books  were  written  the  Jews  commonly 
used  the  phrase  ''  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the 
Writings."  It  is  probable  that  the  addition  of  this 
third  layer  to  the  canon  was  quite  as  informal  and 
natural  a  process  as  that  which  put  the  Former  and 
the  Latter  Prophets  beside  the  Law.  Certain  books, 
such  as  Psalms  and  ProverhSj  were  venerated  because 
of  their  traditional  association  with  David  and  with 
Solomon,  the  founder  of  the  kingdom  and  the  builder 
of  the  temple ;  and  for  the  inclusion  of  Psahns  there 
was  the  added  reason  of  their  daily  use  in  the  serv- 
ices of  the  temple.  The  inclusion  of  other  books, 
such  as  Esther y  the  Song  of  Solomon,  and  Ecclesi- 
astes,  was  disputed  until  the  end  of  the  first  century 
A.D.  Soon  after  that  time,  however,  the  leading 
rabbis  seem  to  have  united  on  the  list  of  the  books 
which  should  be  included  in  the  Scriptures,  and  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  complete  so  far  as 
the  Hebrew  was  concerned.  Even  then,  however,  the 
Greek  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  commonly  known 


288  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

as  the  Septuagint^  which  was  the  Bible  of  Greek- 
speaking  Jews  and  Christians  in  the  first  Christian 
centuries,  included  a  number  of  books  which  were 
not  accepted  by  the  Jews  of  Palestine.  The  growth 
of  the  Old  Testament  canon  must  therefore  have  been 
gradual  and  by  no  means  uniform.  One  can  under- 
stand why  pious  men  among  the  Jews  should  have 
felt  that  such  books  as  Esther^  the  8ong  of  SolomoUy 
and  Ecclesiastes  had  no  place  in  the  sacred  script- 
ures, but  we  know  vaguely  only  the  reasons  which 
finally  caused  their  inclusion, — in  the  case  of  the  two 
latter  pretty  clearly  the  traditional  association  with 
Solomon,  in  the  case  of  Esther  through  a  supposed 
explanation  of  the  feast  of  Purim. 

The  canon  of  the  'New  Testament  seems  to  have 
been  formed  by  an  analogous  process  of  natural  se- 
lection. The  epistles  of  St.  Paul  were  probably  the 
first  of  the  l^ew  Testament  books  to  be  known  and 
read  in  their  present  form.  While  the  original 
apostles  were  still  living  it  is  probable  that  the  stories 
and  teachings  of  the  gospel  were  largely  transmitted 
by  word  of  mouth.  When  these  first  disciples  gave 
place  to  the  second  generation,  however,  and  as  the 
gospel,  enlarging  its  field,  was  spread  more  and  more 
through  the  catechists  who  had  learned  the  stories 
and  teachings  from  them,  oral  transmission  must 
have  tended  to  give  way  to  written.     The  common 


THE  TRANSLATION  289 

material  in  the  first  three  gospels  points,  it  is  now 
generally  held,  to  the  existence  of  two  documents  or 
perhaps  sets  of  documents,  one  of  which  contained  a 
life  of  Jesus  in  a  form  very  much  like  our  St.  Marh, 
the  other  the  body  of  his  sayings,  but  in  a  form  not 
yet  wholly  fixed,  as  can  be  seen  by  the  differing  use 
of  them  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke.  The  existence 
of  extra-canonical  gospels  such  as  those  of  The  He- 
brews and  of  St.  Peter  seems  to  show  that  these 
materials  were  brought  together  in  still  other  com- 
binations than  those  which  we  have  in  the  canonical 
gospels.  If  the  first  three  gospels  had  come  into 
their  present  shape  not  later  than  ten  or  fifteen  years 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  70  a.d.,  it 
is  probable  that  for  something  less  than  a  century 
they  were  more  or  less  in  competition  with  other 
gospels  based  on  the  same  or  like  materials  com- 
bined in  a  somewhat  different  way;  and  that  our 
three  gospels  finally  established  themselves  by  their 
own  superiority  to  the  others.  The  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  St.  John,  which  is  in  intention  much  more  an 
interpretation  of  the  facts  than  a  statement  of  them, 
probably  was  written  by  the  end  of  the  first  century. 
The  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  is  by  the  same  au- 
thor as  >S'^.  Luke,  must  have  been  written  about  the 
same  time  as  that  gospel.  The  Epistles  of  St.  John, 
like  the  gospel,  would  have  come  before  the  end  of 


290  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

the  first  century;  the  other  epistles,  even  the  pseu- 
donymous epistle  of  2  Peter,  must  have  been  written 
not  later  than  the  middle  of  the  second  century ;  and 
by  the  last  quarter  of  the  second  century  we  know 
that  the  fathers  of  the  church  were  making  lists  of 
the  E^ew  Testament  books  which  should  be  authori- 
tatively accepted. 

In  the  meantime  the  Old  Testament  had  been  the 
scriptures  of  the  Christian  church  as  well  as  of  the 
Jewish  church.  Thus  by  the  beginning  of  the  third 
century  the  term  "  Scriptures  "  had  a  fixed  denota- 
tion. For  the  Jews  of  Palestine  it  meant  the  books 
which  are  now  included  in  our  Old  Testament;  and 
all  other  Jews  must  soon  have  accepted  this  limita- 
tion. For  the  Greek-speaking  Jews  and  for  most 
of  the  Christians  the  Scriptures  included  not  only  the 
books  of  our  Old  Testament  but  also  those  of  our 
Apocrypha  and  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  as 
we  have  them.  Thus  early  in  the  first  Christian 
centuries  "  the  Scriptures  "  meant  a  limited  number 
of  books,  on  which  the  faith  of  the  church  could  be 
based.  The  first  stage,  therefore,  in  the  creation  of 
our  Bible  was  now  complete.  The  processes  which 
we  have  to  trace  henceforward  have  to  do  first  with 
certain  versions  which  were  the  forerunners  of  the 
translation  into  English  and  then  with  that  transla- 
tion itself. 


THE  TRANSLATION  291 


III 


The  first  translation  which  bears  in  any  important 
way  on  our  English  Bible  was  the  translation  into 
Greek  made  for  the  use  of  the  Alexandrian  Jews 
during  the  last  three  centuries  of  the  old  era:  it  is 
commonly  known  as  the  Septuagint.  The  bearing  of 
this  version  on  the  English  is  chiefly  through  the 
Vulgate  and  therefore  indirect.  It  gave  some  of  the 
books  the  names  which  we  use  to-day;  and  it  estab- 
lished the  order  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  we  have  them  in  the  English.  As  it  was  in  some 
sense  a  collection  of  national  literature  it  included 
such  pious  tales  as  Tohit  and  Judith,  2  Esdras, 
a  Jewish  apocalypse  written  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  in  70  a.d.,  later  books  of  wisdom  like 
Ecclesiasticus  and  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  the  latter 
of  which  could  not  have  been  expressed  in  Hebrew, 
such  legendary  matter  as  the  stories  of  Susanna  and 
of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  which  were  added  to  Daniel, 
and  finally  such  later  history  as  the  two  books  of  Mac- 
cabees. Though  all  these  were  more  or  less  closely 
analogous  to  kindred  books  of  the  Palestinian  canon 
they  were  not  accepted  as  authoritative  by  the  Jews 
of  Palestine.  The  order  of  the  books  also  was  al- 
tered. \Yhere  the  Hebrew  canon  arranged  the  books 
according  to  the  chronological  growth  of  the  canon, 


^92  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

^'  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Writings,"  the  Sep- 
tuagint  rearranged  them  by  a  literary  classification, 
putting  the  books  of  history  in  the  chronological 
order  of  the  events  which  they  narrate,  then  the 
books  of  poetry  and  wisdom,  then  the  Prophets. 
This  arrangement  was  followed  by  the  English  trans- 
lators in  the  sixteenth  century,  though  they  translated 
from  the  original  Hebrew. 

More  important,  however^  than  this  change  in  the 
order  of  the  books  and  the  giving  of  a  few  names 
was  the  influence  of  the  language  of  this  Greek  ver- 
sion on  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament.  Since 
the  Septuagint  was  the  Bible  of  Greek-speaking  Jews 
and  Christians,  the  effect  of  its  language  on  the 
writers  of  the  ]^ew  Testament  may  be  compared  to 
the  effect  of  our  English  Bible  on  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's 
Progress.  Out  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  direct  quo- 
tations from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment almost  all  come  from  the  Septuagint;  and 
many  familiar  phrases  came  into  the  New  Testament 
by  quotation  from  this  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. Such  phrases  as  "  a  day  of  darkness,''  ^^  the 
day  of  the  Lord,"  "  the  birds  of  heaven,"  "  enter 
into  thy  closet,"  "  where  their  worm  dieth  not  and 
their  fire  is  not  quenched,"  in  the  Greek  New  Testa- 
ment were  all  direct  quotations  from  this  Greek  Old 
Testament.     Its  influence  has  been  summed  up  in 


THE  TRANSLATION  293 

these  words :  "  Xot  the  Old  Testament  only,  but  the 
Alexandrian  version  of  the  Old  Testament,  has  left 
its  mark  on  every  part  of  the  Xew  Testament,  even 
in  chapters  and  books  where  it  is  not  directly  cited. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  its  literary  form 
and  expression  the  IN'ew  Testament  would  have  been 
a  widely  different  book  had  it  been  written  by  authors 
who  knew  the  Old  Testament  only  in  the  original, 
or  who  knew  it  in  a  Greek  version  other  than  that 
of  the  Septuagint."  ^ 

Though  this  version  was  not  the  basis  for  the 
translation  of  any  of  the  canonical  books  in  our  Eng- 
lish Bible,  its  influence  cannot  be  left  out  of  account. 
^ot  only  did  it  strongly  affect  the  phrasing  of  the 
Greek  ]^ew  Testament,  but  it  also  furnished  us  with 
the  books  of  the  Apocrypha,  and  they  are  for  literary 
purposes  nearly  as  important  as  the  regular  books  of 
the  Bible.  Moreover  it  was  in  large  part  the  basis 
of  the  Latin  Bible  of  the  Middle  Ages,  commonly 
known  as  the  Vulgate. 


IV 


The  Vulgate  again  is  a  version  of  the  Bible  which, 
like  the  Septuagint,  is  not  in  the  direct  line  of  an- 
cestry of  our  English  Bible.    Nevertheless,  unlike  the 

^  H.  B,  Swete,  Introdiiction  to  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek,  p.  404. 


294  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Septuagint,  it  had  direct  influence  on  the  language  of 
the  English  version;  and  indirectly  it  contributed  a 
good  deal  which  helped  to  make  the  English  Bible  a 
great  work  of  literature  as  well  as  the  foundation  of 
religion.  The  first  translators  of  our  English  Bible, 
Tindale,  Coverdale,  Rogers  and  the  rest,  were  church- 
men who  grew  up  in  a  time  when  the  Scriptures 
could  be  known  only  in  the  Latin.  They  must  have 
known  their  Vulgate  Bible  in  the  way  that  our 
fathers  knew  their  English  Bible;  and  from  the 
freedom  with  which  the  Vulgate  is  quoted  all  through 
the  sixteenth  century  and  even  to  the  time  of  Francis 
Bacon  we  may  feel  confident  that  the  minds  of  these 
first  translators  were  saturated  with  its  phrases  and 
their  ears  ringing  with  its  rhythms  and  tones.  On 
the  other  hand,  when  the  original  Greek  was  first 
made  generally  accessible  by  Erasmus'  'New  Testa- 
ment, the  Novum  Instrumentum  of  1516,  the  obvious 
corruptness  of  the  text  of  the  Vulgate  helped  to  send 
Luther  and  Tindale  to  the  preparation  of  new  and 
accurate  translations  from  the  original.  This  in- 
centive was  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  the  words 
and  phrases  of  the  Vulgate  had  been  overlaid  with 
fantastic  allegorical  interpretations,  and  even  more 
by  the  fact  that  on  the  ecclesiastical  connotations  of 
such  words  as  poenitentia,  ecclesia,  'presbyter,  and 
the  like  were  based  many  of  the  most  oppressive  and 


THE  TRANSLATION  295 

unspiritual  practices  of  the  church  of  that  period. 
Moreover,  in  the  history  of  literature  the  Vulgate  is 
of  great  importance  for  its  own  sake.  It  was  the 
Bible  for  all  Europe  do^\Ti  to  the  Reformation,  and 
the  only  source  of  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures ;  and 
all  references  to  the  Bible  in  mediaeval  and  Renais- 
sance literature  to  go  back  to  it.  In  itself,  besides 
being  one  of  the  two  or  three  best  translations  ever 
made  of  the  Scriptures,  it  is  a  work  of  extraordinary 
vigor,  beauty,  and  individuality  of  character.  A 
modern  writer  says  of  it,  ^^  we  may  gladly  echo  the 
words  of  the  '  translator '  to  the  readers  in  our  own 
Authorised  Version  that  Jerome  performed  his  task 
^  with  that  evidence  of  great  learning,  judgment,  in- 
dustry, and  faithfulness,  that  he  hath  for  ever  bound 
the  Church  unto  him  in  a  debt  of  special  remem- 
brance and  thankfulness.'  "  ^ 

In  text  the  Vulgate  is  a  curious  conglomerate  of 
fresh  translation  from  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  and 
thorough  or  partial  revision  of  what  is  known  as 
the  Old  Latin  text.  When  Latin  gradually  became 
the  language  of  the  Western  civilized  world,  trans- 
lations of  the  Septuagint  were  made  into  Latin,  so 
that  by  the  middle  of  the  third  century  a.d.  there 
w^as  a  complete  Latin  Bible,  though  not  necessarily  in 

^  H.  J.  White,  Article  "Vulgate,"  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible, 


296  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

a  single  text.  In  383  a.d.  Damasus,  who  was  tlien 
Pope,  commissioned  Jerome  to  prepare  a  revised  and 
authoritative  version  of  the  New  Testament  in  Latin. 

Jerome  was  singularly  well  qualified  for  the  work. 
Beginning  life  with  the  best  education  the  time  af- 
forded in  literature,  rhetoric,  and  Greek,  he  was  con- 
verted from  worldly  things  when  a  little  past  thirty 
years  old  and  gave  the  rest  of  his  life  to  asceticism 
and  study.  He  was  an  excellent  Latin  scholar,  with 
a  pure  and  vigorous  Latin  style  of  his  own,  a  good 
Greek  scholar,  and  later  in  life  a  good  Hebrew 
scholar.  He  seems  to  have  had  the  rare  combination 
of  thorough  and  laborious  scholarship  with  ardor  of 
temperament  and  command  of  style,  a  combination 
that  we  shall  find  also  in  William  Tindale.  He  was 
thus  able  to  fuse  the  products  of  his  learning  and 
give  to  the  style  of  his  version  a  flow  and  rhythm 
which  translations  usually  lack. 

Jerome  began  his  work  with  a  thorough  revision 
of  the  gospels.  The  rest  of  the  'New  Testament 
he  revised  also  from  the  Greek,  but  much  less  thor- 
oughly. After  this  he  turned  his  attention  to  the 
Old  Testament,  beginning  with  the  Psalter  and  re- 
vising this  and  some  other  books  from  the  Septuagint. 
Ey  this  time  it  became  apparent  to  him,  however,  that 
he  must  go  to  the  Hebrew ;  and  accordingly  through 
the  instruction  of  a  Jew  who  came  secretly  to  him 


THE  TRANSLATION  297 

at  night,  he  perfected  his  knowledge  of  that  language. 
Then  in  irregular  order  he  translated  most  of  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  from  the  Hebrew  and 
certain  of  the  apocryphal  books  from  the  Chaldee. 
The  Wisdom  of  Solomon^  E cclesiasticus  and  probably 
1  and  2  Maccabees  he  did  not  revise ;  they  stand  in  the 
Vulgate  in  the  form  which  they  held  in  the  Old  Latin. 
Thus  this  work,  which  was  to  have  so  potent  an  in- 
fluence, left  its  maker  in  a  curiously  composite  form. 
It  came  into  general  circulation  in  the  place  of  the 
Old  Latin  only  very  gradually;  and  like  all  other 
works  of  the  Middle  Ages,  being  handed  down  by 
copying,  its  text  gradually  became  corrupted,  at  first 
by  familiar  phrases  from  the  Old  Latin  which  were 
written  in  by  sleepy  copyists,  later  on  by  carelessness 
and  the  invasion  of  marginal  notes.  Various  efforts 
were  made  to  restore  the  original  text,  notably  by 
Alcuin  on  the  commission  of  Charlemagne,  but  it  was 
not  until  printing  was  invented  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury that  the  text  became  anything  like  settled.  Even 
then  there  were  notorious  divergencies  in  reading  in 
many  places;  and  when,  in  1590,  Pope  Sixtus  Quin- 
tus  issued  an  edition  which  he  decreed  should  be 
accepted  as  the  "  true,  lawful,  authentic,  and  indu- 
bitable "  Vulgate,  as  prescribed  by  the  Council  of 
Trent  for  use  in  all  the  churches  of  the  Christian 
world,   it  was  found  to   have  so   many  errors   that 


298  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

a  revised  edition  was  issued  by  authority  in  1592. 
Some  of  the  divergencies  of  the  Vulgate  from  the 
Hebrew  and  the  accepted  Greek  text  it  should  be 
said,  however,  go  back  to  variant  readings  in  early 
manuscripts  which  are  of  considerable  importance 
for  the  restoration  of  the  text. 

In  his  discussion  of  the  canon  in  his  various  pref- 
aces Jerome  pointed  out  explicitly  that  the  books 
which  appear  in  our  English  Bible  in  the  Apocrypha 
were  not  found  in  the  Hebrew ;  and  he  made  the  dis- 
tinction, which  was  taken  up  by  the  English  Church, 
that  "  the  Church  doth  read  these  books  for  example 
of  life  and  instruction  of  manners;  but  yet  doth  it 
not  apply  them  to  establish  any  doctrine,"  as  it  is 
put  in  the  Thirty-I^ine  Articles.  ^N^evertheless  the 
Council  of  Trent  in  1547  included  these  books  as 
part  of  the  sacred  and  canonical  scriptures ;  and  until 
the  time  that  Luther  had  gone  back  to  Jerome's 
declaration,  no  one  seems  to  have  thought  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  these  books  and  the  others. 

The  direct  influence  of  the  Vulgate  on  the  text  and 
vocabulary  of  the  English  Bible  I  will  refer  to  later. 
For  the  present  I  will  confine  myself  to  pointing  out 
certain  qualities  and  attributes  which  it  possesses  in 
common  with  our  English  Bible  and  which  it  seems 
not  unreasonable  to  think  the  latter  gained  in  part  at 
any  rate  by  reflection  from  the  Vulgate.     This  indi- 


THE  TRANSLATION  299 

rect  influence  on  the  style  and  general  expressiveness 
of  our  English  Bible  is  a  difficult  matter  to  estimate, 
and  it  can  never  be  weighed  with  any  exactness. 
Xevertheless,  as  I  have  said,  Tindale  and  his  suc- 
cessors must  have  been  steeped  in  the  language  of  the 
Vulgate ;  and  since  its  style  has  strongly  marked  qual- 
ities which  fit  it  for  expressing  spiritual  truths  and 
deep  and  earnest  feeling,  we  may  reasonably  suppose 
that  it  had  considerable  influence  on  the  style  of  our 
English  versions. 

To  begin  with,  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate  is  very  far 
from  the  finished  and  rhetorical  language  of  Cicero 
or  even  of  Caesar.  The  Latin  of  Jerome's  time  was 
more  or  less  broken  down  in  syntax,  and  like  all  lan- 
guages in  their  decay  its  vocabulary  was  much  con- 
taminated by  local  and  colloquial  forms,  some  of 
which  went  back  to  the  Latin  of  several  centuries  be- 
fore. As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  Latin  of  the  Vulgate 
is  nearer  to  English  in  its  constructions  and  order 
of  words  than  it  is  to  the  classical  Latin.  It  shows 
the  direct  influence  of  the  Hebrew  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  of  Greek  considerably  affected  by  the  He- 
brew in  the  Xew  Testament.  A  few  examples  will 
make  clear  the  comparative  resemblance  of  this  Latin 
of  the  Vulgate  to  our  modern  English : 

Adse  vero  dixit :  Quia  audisti  vocem  uxoris  tuse, 
et  comedisti  de  Ugno,  ex  quo  praeceperam  tibi,  ne 


300  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

comederes,  maledicta  terra  in  opere  tuo :  in  labori- 
bus  comedes  ex  ea  cunctis  diebus  vitae  tuae. 

Spinas  et  tribulos  germinabit  tibi,  et  comedes 
herbam  terrse. 

In  sudore  vultus  tui  vesceris  pane,  donee  rever- 
taris  in  terram  de  qua  sumtus  es:  quia  pulvis  es, 
et  in  pulverem  reverteris. 

And  unto  Adam  he  said,  Because  thou  hast 
barkened  unto  the  voice  of  thy  wife,  and  hast 
eaten  of  the  tree,  of  which  I  commanded  thee, 
saying.  Thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it:  cursed  is  the 
ground  for  thy  sake;  in  sorrow  shalt  thou  eat  of  it 
all  the  days  of  thy  life; 

Thorns  also  and  thistles  shall  it  bring  forth  to 
thee;  and  thou  shalt  eat  the  herb  of  the  field; 

In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread, 
till  thou  return  unto  the  ground;  for  out  of  it  wast 
thou  taken:  for  dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt 
thou  return.  1 

Ubi  eras,  quando  ponebam  fundamenta  terrse? 
indica  mihi,  si  habes  intelligentiam. 

Quis  posuit  mensuras  ejus,  si  nosti?  vel  quis 
tetendit  super  eam  lineam? 

Super  quo  bases  illius  solidatse  sunt?  aut  quis 
demisit  lapidem  angularem  ejus. 

Cum  me  laudarent  simul  astra  matutina,  et 
jubilarent  omnes  filii  Dei? 

Where  wast  thou,  when  I  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  earth?  declare,  if  thou  hast  understanding. 
»  Gen.  iii.  17-19. 


THE  TRANSLATION  301 

Who  hath  laid  the  measures  thereof,  if  thou 
knowest?  or  who  hath  stretched  the  hne  upon  it? 

Whereupon  are  the  foundations  thereof  fastened? 
or  who  laid  the  corner  stone  thereof; 

When  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all 
the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy?» 

Alia  claritas  solis,  alia  claritas  lunae,  et  alia 
claritas  stellarum.  Stella  enim  a  stella  differt  in 
claritate: 

Sic  et  resurrectio  mortuorum.  Seminatur  in 
corruptione,  surget  in  incorruptione. 

Seminatur  in  ignobilitate,  surget  in  gloria; 
seminatur  in  infirmitate,  surget  in  virtute; 

Seminatur  corpus  animale,  surget  corpus  spiritale. 
Si  est  corpus  animale,  est  et  spiritale,  sicut  scrip- 
turn  est: 

Factus  est  primus  homo  Adam  in  animam 
viventem;  novissimus  Adam  in  spiritum  vivifi- 
cantem. 

Sed  non  prius,  quod  spiritale  est,  sed  quod 
animale;  deinde  quod  spiritale. 

Primus  homo  de  terra,  terrenus;  secundus  homo 
de  coelo,  coelestis. 

There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and  another  glory 
of  the  moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars:  for 
one  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory. 

So  also  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  It  is 
sown  in  corruption;  it  is  raised  in  incorruption : 

It  is  sown  in  dishonour;  it  is  raised  in  glory: 
it  is  sown  in  weakness;  it  is  raised  in  power: 
I  Job  xxxviii.  4-7. 


302  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

It  is  sown  a  natural  body;  it  is  raised  a  spiritual 
body.  There  is  a  natural  body,  and  there  is  a 
spiritual  body. 

And  so  it  is  written,  The  first  man  Adam  was 
made  a  living  soul;  the  last  Adam  was  made  a 
quickening  spirit. 

Howbeit  that  was  not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but 
that  which  is  natural;  and  afterward  that  which  is 
spiritual. 

The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy:  the  second 
man  is  the  Lord  from  heaven.  ^ 

This  close  resemblance  in  the  order  of  the  Latin  to 
the  natural  order  of  the  words  in  English  helps  to 
make  it  probable  that  its  language  affected  the  trans- 
lation made  by  Tindale  and  Coverdale. 

When  we  turn  to  the  sensuous  qualities  and  attri- 
butes which  the  English  has  in  common  with  the  Vul- 
gate the  richness  of  the  music  and  the  expressive  beat 
of  the  rhythm  stand  out  preeminent.  A  notable 
characteristic  of  our  English  Bible,  as  I  have  pointed 
out  in  the  chapter  on  the  poetry,  is  its  power  to  ex- 
press strong  and  earnest  feeling  through  the  pure 
sound  of  the  style :  through  its  rhythm  and  the  har- 
mony and  mingling  of  tones  its  language  gives  ex- 
pression to  those  deeper  and  diffused  moods  which 
for  lack  of  more  exact  expression  we  call  stirrings  of 
the  soul.  Since  the  symbols  of  style  are  in  the  first 
'  1  Cor.  XV.  41-47. 


THE  TRANSLATION  303 

place  symbols  for  the  sounds  of  the  human  voice,  style 
shares  to  some  degree  the  power  of  music  to  body  forth 
by  direct  appeal  to  the  ear  these  feelings  which  must 
always  elude  articulate  expression  through  the  mean- 
ings of  the  words.  How  far  this  power  of  music  and 
of  the  musical  sound  of  language  lies  in  the  qualities 
and  successions  of  the  sound  and  how  far  in  the  beat 
of  the  rhythm  cannot  be  said,  even  if  it  were  neces- 
sary for  our  present  purpose  to  know;  but  it  is  im- 
portant to  recognise  that  the  sensuous  attributes  of 
style  are  in  themselves  an  expression  of  an  impor- 
tant part  of  man's  consciousness;  and  that  in  them 
style  finds  much  of  its  power  to  express  the  deep  and 
noble  emotions  which  are  so  large  a  part  of  religion. 
Unconsciously  Tindale  and  his  successors  recognised 
this  fact^  as  did  all  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
In  the  Vulgate  this  music  was  so  rich  that  it  could 
clothe  even  the  bare,  unlovely  details  of  the  sacrifices 
with  a  beauty  of  coloring  that  would  make  them  in 
the  Latin  a  fit  basis  for  an  anthem. 

Idcirco  ubi  immolabitur  holoeaustum,  macta- 
bitur  et  victima  pro  deUcto:  sanguis  ejus  per 
gyrum  altaris  fundetur. 

efferent  ex  ea  caudam  et  adipem  qui  operit 
vitaUa: 

Duos  renunculos,  et  pinguedinem  quae  juxta 
ilia  est,  reticulumque  jecoris  cum  renuncuUs. 


304  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Et  adolebit  ea  sacerdos  super  altare:  incensum 
est  Domini  pro  delicto. 

In  the  place  where  they  kill  the  burnt  offering 
shall  they  kill  the  trespass  offering:  and  the  blood 
thereof  shall  he  sprinkle  round  about  upon  the  altar. 

And  he  shall  offer  of  it  all  the  fat  thereof;  the 
rump,  and  the  fat  that  covereth  the  inwards, 

And  the  two  kidneys,  and  the  fat  that  is  on  them, 
which  is  by  the  flanks,  and  the  caul  that  is  above 
the  liver,  with  the  kidneys,  it  shall  he  take  away: 

And  the  priest  shall  burn  them  upon  the  altar 
for  an  offering  made  by  fire  unto  the  Lord:  it  is  a 
trespass  offering. 

In  more  inspiring  passages  the  Latin  indefinitely 
deepens  and  enriches  the  expression  and  clothes  it  as 
with  the  strong  but  subdued  harmonies  of  a  great  or- 
gan, as  in  the  psalm  I  have  quoted  on  p.  123,  and  in 
the  following  passage  from  Revelation : 

Et  vidi,  et  audivi  vocem  Angelorum  multorum 
in  circuitu  throni,  et  animalium  et  seniorum;  et 
erat  numerus  eorum  millia  millium, 

Dicentium  voce  magna:  Dignus  est  Agnus,  qui 
occisus  est,  accipere  virtutem  et  divinitatem,  et 
sapientiam  et  fortitudinem,  et  honorem  et  gloriam, 
et  benedictionem. 

Et  omnem  creaturam,  quae  in  ccelo  est,  et  super 
terram  et  sub  terra,  et  quae  sunt  in  mari,  et  quae 
*  Lev.  vii,  2-5. 


THE  TRANSLATION  305 

in  eo,  omnes  audivi  dicentes:  Sedenti  in  throno,  et 
Agno:  Benedictio  et  honor,  et  gloria  et  potestas  in 
saecula  sseculorum. 

Et  quatuor  animalia  dicebant:  Amen.  Et 
viginti  quatuor  seniores  ceciderunt  in  facies  suas 
et  adoraverunt  viventem  in  saecula  saeculorum. 

And  I  beheld,  and  I  heard  the  voice  of  many 
angels  round  about  the  throne  and  the  beasts  and 
the  elders:  and  the  number  of  them  was  ten  thou- 
sand times  ten  thousand,  and  thousands  of  thou- 
sands : 

Saying  with  a  loud  voice,  Worthy  is  the  Lamb 
that  was  slain  to  receive  power,  and  riches,  and 
wisdom,  and  strength,  and  honour,  and  glory,  and 
blessing. 

And  every  creature  which  is  in  heaven,  and  on 
the  earth,  and  under  the  earth,  and  such  as  are  in 
the  sea,  and  all  that  are  in  them,  heard  I  saying, 
Blessing,  and  honour,  and  glory,  and  power,  be 
unto  him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto 
the  Lamb  for  ever  and  ever. 

And  the  four  beasts  said.  Amen.  And  the  four 
and  twenty  elders  fell  down  and  worshipped  him 
that  liveth  for  ever  and  ever.^ 

The  prevalence  of  such  resonant  phrases  as  vocem 
angelorum  muUorum,  honorem  at  gloriam,  in  scecula 
sceculorum,  makes  this  passage  almost  an  anthem  as 
it  stands;  and  its  grave  sonorousness  is  a  palpable 
iRev.  V.  11-14. 


306  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

utterance  of  the  awe  and  reverence  which  man  feels 
in  the  presence  of  an  almighty  God.  The  more  that 
one  reads  in  this  splendid  Latin  Bible  the  more  sure 
does  one  become  that  men  who  were  brought  up  on  it 
and  who  knew  the  Scriptures  first  in  its  noble  tones 
must  have  been  deeply  influenced  in  their  own  trans- 
lation by  its  stateliness  and  music. 

That  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  able,  as 
we  are  not  to-day,  to  carry  over  into  English  these 
deeply  expressive  qualities  of  the  medigeval  Latin  the 
Booli:,  of  Common  Prayer  of  the  English  Church  is  an 
even  more  tangible  proof.  Cramner  took  over  most 
of  its  collects  and  prayers  from  the  old  service  books 
of  the  Roman  Church,  which  in  turn  had  gathered 
them  from  the  writings  of  the  ancient  fathers  of  the 
Church  back  to  the  time  of  St.  Jerome,  St.  Augustine, 
and  St.  Chrysostom.  With  the  genius  of  his  century 
for  translation  he  transferred  to  the  English  not  only 
the  meaning  of  the  words,  but  also  the  rich  sound  and 
rhythm  of  the  mediaeval  Latin ;  and  that  without  the 
use  of  Latinate  words.  Here  are  two  examples, — the 
first  the  collect  for  the  Fifth  Sunday  after  Easter, 
the  other  that  for  the  Twenty-fifth  Sunday  after  Trin- 
ity.    I  give  first  the  English,  then  the  Latin  of  each. 

O  Lord,  from  whom  all  good  things  do  come; 
Grant  to  us  thy  humble  servants,  that  by  thy  holy 
inspiration  we  may  think   those  things  that  be 


THE  TRANSLATION  307 

good,  and  by  thy  merciful  guiding  may  perform  the 

same. 

Deus,  a  quo  bona  cuncta  procedunt,  largire 
suppUcibus  tuis,  ut  cogitemus  te  inspirante  quae 
recta  sunt  et  te  gubernante  eadem  faciamus. 

Stir  up,  we  beseech  thee,  O  Lord,  the  wills  of 
thy  faithful  people;  that  they,  plenteously  bringing 
forth  the  fruit  of  good  works,  may  of  thee  be 
plenteously  rewarded. 

Excita,  qusesumus,  Domine,  tuorum  fidelium 
voluntates  ut,  divini  operis  fructum  propensius 
exequentes,  pietatis  tuae  remedia  majora  per- 
cipiant.^ 

In  these  cases,  as  in  so  many  others  in  the  book,  in 
spite  of  the  small  number  of  Latinate  words,  one  is 
struck  by  the  similarity  of  the  rhythm  and  coloring 
between  the  English  and  the  Latin.  Merely  as  an 
achievement  in  translation  this  clothing  of  a  non- 
Latinate  style  with  the  organ-like  richness  of  the 
Latin  originals  has  never  been  surpassed  in  English. 
What  is  important  for  us  here  is  the  fact  that  it 
shows  how  readily  and  how  fully  men  of  the  six- 
teenth century  could  transfer  to  English  not  only 
the  meaning  of  the  words,  but  also  the  rich  coloring 
of  the  Latin  style. 

^  From  Campion  and  Beamont :  The  Prayer  Book  Interleaved : 
London,  1888. 


308  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

In  the  case  of  the  Bible  these  same  qualities  of 
sound,  the  subdued  richness,  the  strong  beat  of  the 
rhythm  and  all  the  other  subtler  attributes  which 
clothe  the  style  with  its  simple  and  unconscious  ear- 
nestness are  found  both  in  the  Vulgate  and  in  the 
English  translation.  This  mediaeval  Latin,  as  I  have 
said,  was  a  language  of  very  different  qualities  from 
the  language  of  Cicero  and  Caesar.  With  the  greater 
simplicity  of  structure  which  it  owed  ultimately  in 
the  case  of  the  Bible  to  the  simplicity  of  the  Hebrew, 
it  took  over  from  the  Hebrew  a  certain  swiftness  and 
momentum  also;  and  at  the  same  time  through  the 
dominance  of  the  singing  qualities  which  I  have 
already  referred  to  in  the  chapter  on  the  poetry  of 
the  Bible,  it  had  a  richness  and  coloring  which  have 
perhaps  never  been  surpassed,  and  which  suffuse  its 
words  with  deep  reverence  and  earnestness.  This 
earnest  reverence  is  one  of  the  most  notable  qualities 
of  our  English  Bible,  and  that  which  most  lifts  it 
above  all  other  books  of  our  literature.  Since  the 
capacity  of  language  to  express  these  ennobling  emo- 
tions depends  largely  on  its  purely  musical  resources, 
and  since,  as  we  have  seen,  Tindale  and  his  succes- 
sors when  they  thought  of  a  text  of  the  Bible  would 
have  thought  of  it  first  in  the  richly  sonorous  form 
of  the  Vulgate,  we  may  safely  assume  that  some 
.  part  of  the  sober  earnestness  and  reverence  of  our 


THE  TRANSLATION  309 

English  Bible  is  to  be  ascribed  to  unconscious  reflec- 
tion from  the  Latin. 

At  the  same  time  these  intermediate  translations 
into  Greek  and  Latin  must  have  had  another,  though 
a  more  remote  and  less  tangible  consequence  on  the 
style  of  the  English.  We  have  seen  that  the  original 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  came  from  very  different 
ages  and  circumstances  in  the  history  of  the  people 
of  Israel,  and  that  this  difference  is  still  reflected  in 
the  style  of  the  English.  So  far  as  the  style  of  the 
Latin  had  influence  it  must  have  helped  to  blur  and 
obliterate  these  differences  between  the  various  books 
and  parts  of  books  and  brought  them  nearer  to  a  com-' 
mon  type  of  style.  Since  none  of  the  translators 
whether  into  English  or  into  Greek  or  Latin  had  any 
suspicion  of  these  differences  of  origin  every  fresh 
translation  and  revision  would  have  helped  towards 
making  a  single  book  out  of  writings  which  had  come 
into  existence  in  such  a  variety  of  ways. 

Eor  all  these  reasons^  then^  if  we  would  under- 
stand the  nature  and  power  of  the  English  Bible  as  a 
work  of  literature  we  must  take  into  account  the  Vul- 
gate, and  even  to  some  extent  its  forerunner,  the 
Septuagint.  We  shall  find  later  that  the  Vulgate 
made  some  direct  contribution  to  the  phrasing  of 
the  Authorised  Version,  especially  through  the  use 
made  of  it  by  Coverdale  both  for  his  own  Bible 


310  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

of  1535  and  for  the  Great  Bible  of  1539-41,  and 
also  through  the  labors  of  Gregory  Martin  on  the 
Khemish  ISTew  Testament  of  1582,  on  which  King 
James's  revisers  drew  so  freely.  But  besides  this  di- 
rect contribution  there  is,  as  I  trust  that  I  have  made 
clear,  the  larger  contribution  of  musical  expressive- 
ness, which  is  even  more  important  from  the  point  of 
view  of  literature,  since  it  goes  farther  towards  fix- 
ing the  individuality  and  strengthening  the  power  of 
the  book.  As  in  the  case  of  a  man  the  set  of  the 
mouth,  the  carriage  of  the  head,  the  tones  of  the  voice 
and  the  decisiveness  or  slackness  of  utterance  mould 
our  idea  of  his  character,  so  with  a  book :  rhythm  and 
harmony  can  no  more  be  reduced  to  notation  than  such 
indications  of  character  in  a  man  can  be  recorded  by 
anthropometry;  yet  they  are  the  ultimate  means  of 
expression  of  feelings  and  emotions  which  in  the  book 
as  in  the  man  are  in  the  deepest  sense  the  essentials 
of  character.  Though  criticism  can  make  no  analy- 
sis of  such  facts,  it  cannot  ignore  them;  for  if  they 
cannot  be  defined  they  can  in  part  be  described ;  and 
even  as  here  a  little  light  can  be  thrown  on  their 
origin  and  causes.  And  since  in  the  case  of  the  Bible 
it  is  even  more  true  than  with  most  books  that  the 
spirit  is  the  life,  anything  that  in  any  way  helps  to 
illuminate  these  deep-lying  realities  is  worthy  of 
study  and  record. 


THE  TRANSLATION  311 


The  first  complete  translation  into  English  was 
that  of  John  Wyclif.  This,  however,  it  is  almost 
certain,  contributed  nothing  to  our  present  English 
Bible.  In  the  first  place  it  was  a  translation  of  the 
Vulgate:  and  one  of  the  reasons  which  stirred  Tin- 
dale  to  his  work  was  the  fact  that  had  been  made  clear 
bj  the  labors  of  Erasmus,  that  the  text  of  the  Vulgate 
was  in  many  places  corrupt  and  untrustworthy.  In 
the  second  place  the  English  of  Wyclif's  version  in 
the  sixteenth  century  was  already  archaic.  And 
finally  we  have  Tindale's  express  declaration  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Eeader  subjoined  to  his  first  edition 
of  the  Xew  Testament,  ^^  I  had  no  man  to  counterfet, 
nether  was  holpe  with  englysshe  of  eny  that  had  in- 
terpreted the  same,  or  soche  lyke  thinge  in  the  script- 
ure before  tyme."  Wyclif's  version  was  undoubtedly 
of  importance  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  reception 
of  the  gospel  in  English,  for  many  manuscripts  of 
the  whole  or  parts  of  it  persist  until  to-day;  and  Foxe 
in  his  Booh  of  Martyrs  cites  many  cases  of  prosecu- 
tions in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  for 
owning  and  reading  portions  of  the  Scriptures  in 
English,  which  must  have  been  copies  of  Wyclif's 
translation.  It  is  not  clear  how  widespread  this 
reading  was.     Eoxe's  extracts  come  chiefly  from  the 


312  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

registers  of  the  dioceses  of  London  and  of  Lincoln, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  this  spirit  had  spread  through 
many  other  parts  of  England.  Wyclif's  doctrines  had 
become  so  closely  associated  with  the  political  and  so- 
cial aberrations  of  Lollardy,  that  his  translation  of 
the  Bible  must  have  become  discredited  by  such  dan- 
gerous associations. 

The  impulse  which  led  to  Tindale's  translation  of 
the  Bible  into  English  came  with  the  return  of  John 
Colet  from  Italy  shortly  before  the  end  of  the  fif- 
teenth century.  He  had  gone  to  Italy  to  study 
Greek,  and  he  had  devoted  his  study  to  equipping 
himself  with  a  knowledge  of  the  New  Testament  in 
the  original  language.  Coming  back  to  England,  he 
swept  away  the  monstrous  superstructure  of  subtle- 
ties which  the  ecclesiastical  philosophy  had  built  on 
the  text  of  the  Vulgate,  and  declared  that  the  Script- 
ure was  to  be  understood  in  its  plain  and  simple  sense 
by  anyone  who  could  read  the  language  in  which  it 
was  written.  This  treatment  of  the  Scriptures  was 
revolutionary  to  most  men  of  the  times,  but  enor- 
mously stimulating  to  the  men  whose  minds  had  been 
opened  to  the  light  of  the  new  learning  of  the  Renais- 
sance. These  ideas  of  Colet's  came  to  their  full 
fruition  in  the  scholarly  labors  of  Erasmus. 

The  latter  had  come  to  England  in  1498,  already 
skilled  in  all  the  learning  of  the  schoolmen,  but  now 


THE  TRANSLATION  313 

eager  to  study  Greek.  From  the  first  his  intercourse 
with  Colet  seems  to  have  swept  away  his  interest  in 
the  hairsplitting  of  the  scholastic  fathers;  and  he 
gave  himself  with  his  whole  heart  to  the  study  of 
Greek  and  the  propagation  of  Colet's  reasonable 
view  of  religion  and  of  learning.  His  Enchiridion 
Militis  Christianij  or  Dagger  of  the  Christian  Sol- 
dier,  as  the  title  may  be  translated,  took  up  the  idea 
already  declared  by  Colet  that  Christianity  was  not  a 
matter  of  the  acceptance  of  dogma  or  the  performance 
of  outward  rites  and  ceremonies  so  much  as  a  pure, 
righteous,  and  self-sacrificing  life.  Moreover,  in  his 
first  edition  of  the  Greek  Kew  Testament,  the  Novum 
Instrumentum  of  1516,  he  made  a  declaration  which 
we  know  Tindale  must  have  read  and  w^hich  we  may 
suppose  helped  to  start  the  latter  on  his  life's  work: 

*'  I  totally  dissent  from  those  who  are  unwilling 
that  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  translated  into  the 
vulgar  tongue,  should  be  read  by  private  indi- 
viduals, as  if  Christ  had  taught  such  subtle 
doctrines  that  they  can  with  difficulty  be  under- 
stood by  a  very  few  theologians,  or  as  if  the 
strength  of  the  Christian  religion  lay  in  men's  ig- 
norance of  it.  The  mysteries  of  kings  it  were 
perhaps  better  to  conceal,  but  Christ  wishes  His 
mysteries  to  be  published  as  widely  as  possible. 
I  would  wish  even  all  women  to  read  the  Gospel 
and   the   Epistles   of  St.  Paul.     And  I  wish  they 


314  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

were  translated  into  all  languages  of  all  people, 
that  they  might  be  read  and  known,  not  merely 
by  the  Scotch  and  the  Irish,  but  even  by  the 
Turks  and  the  Saracens.  I  wish  that  the  hus- 
bandman may  sing  parts  of  them  at  his  plough, 
that  the  weaver  may  warble  them  at  his  shuttle, 
that  the  traveller  may  with  their  narratives  beguile 
the  weariness  of  the  way."  ^ 

Thus  Erasmus  passed  on  with  renewed  strength  the 
enlightened  view  of  Colet  that  the  Scriptures  were 
simple  and  clear  writings  which  should  be  put  be- 
fore the  whole  people;  and  he  helped  forward  the 
work  by  preparing  an  edition  of  the  l^ew  Testament 
with  a  fresh  Latin  translation  which  made  the  origi- 
nal text  generally  accessible.  The  force  which  made 
inevitable  the  translation  into  English  seems  there- 
fore to  have  had  two  sources :  on  the  one  hand  there 
was  this  declaration  of  a  few  of  the  most  intelligent 
and  enlightened  men  of  the  day  that  the  gospels 
should  be  freely  opened  to  all  the  people  of  England ; 
on  the  other  hand  there  was  the  eager  faith  of  certain 
of  the  poorer  classes  of  the  people,  who,  clinging  to 
the  teachings  of  Wyclif  and  reading  fragments  of  his 
translation  in  barns  and  behind  hedges  at  the  risk  of 
persecution,  kept  alive  the  desire  for  the  Scriptures 
and  prepared  the  way  for  a  ready  dissemination  of 

*  Translated  by  Rev.  R.  Demaus  in  William  Tyndale,  p.  45. 


THE  TRANSLATION  315 

Tindale's  Xew  Testaments  when  they  came  to  Eng- 
land in  1526,  The  history  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
English  Reformation  is  obscure,  and  it  has  not  yet 
been  made  out  how  widely  this  latter  movement  was 
spread  in  England.  It  seems  clear,  however,  that  at 
this  time  a  large  part  of  England  would  have  opposed 
it,  and  that  it  was  chiefly  confined  to  the  larger  towns 
and  to  the  eastern  counties.  The  history  is  further 
complicated  by  the  mingling  of  religion  with  politics 
and  personal  ambitions;  but  the  desire  of  English- 
men to  read  the  Scriptures  for  themselves  and  to  de- 
cide each  man  for  himself  on  its  meaning,  was  one 
of  the  chief  forces  which  finally  ranged  England  on 
the  Protestant  side. 


VI 


The  actual  beginnings  of  our  Authorised  Version 
go  back  to  the  printing  at  Worms  in  1525  of  Tin- 
dale's  first  edition  of  the  New  Testament.  As  we 
look  back  now,  we  can  see  that  the  times  and  the  man 
met  in  an  agreement  hardly  possible  in  English  his- 
tory before  or  since. 

Of  William  Tindale  ^   himself,  one  of  the  great 

*  I  follow  the  spelling  of  the  name  in  the  only  known  signa- 
ture of  the  great  translator.  A  facsimile  of  the  letter  in  which 
it  is  found  is  given  in  Demaus,  William  Tyndale,  a  Biography, 
2nd  edition,  p.  437. 


316  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

heroes  of  the  English  race,  we  have  grievously  little 
definite  information  outside  his  published  works. 
Born  probably  in  Gloucestershire,  he  graduated  B.A. 
from  Oxford  in  1512,  only  a  few  years  after  Colet 
had  been  delivering  his  lectures  on  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul,  and  while  he  was  still  preaching  in  Lon- 
don. From  Oxford  he  went  to  Cambridge,  probably 
.just  missing  Erasmus  there.  But  Cambridge  must 
have  been  as  much  roused  by  the  ferment  brought 
by  Erasmus  as  Oxford  had  been  a  few  years  before 
by  that  brought  by  Colet.  Then  Tindale  returned 
to  Gloucestershire  as  tutor  in  the  family  of  a  Sir 
John  Walsh;  and  we  have  reports  through  Eoxe  of 
the  disturbance  he  created  by  his  disputes  with  the 
unenlightened  clergy  who  came  to  the  table  of  his  pa- 
tron. It  is  of  this  time  that  Eoxe  tells  the  following 
story  of  Tindale :  "  Communing  and  disputing  with  a 
certain  learned  man  in  whose  company  he  happened 
to  be,  he  drove  him  to  that  issue  that  the  learned  man 
said  we  were  better  be  without  God's  laws  than  the 
Pope's.  Master  Tindale,  hearing  that,  answered  him, 
*  I  defy  the  Pope  and  all  his  laws.'  And  said,  '  If 
God  spare  my  life  many  years,  I  will  cause  a  boy  that 
driveth  the  plough  shall  know  more  of  the  Scripture 
than  thou  doest.'  " 

In  this  frame  of  mind  he  went  to  London  in  1523 
for  the  special  purpose  of  making  a  translation  of 


THE  TRANSLATION  317 

the  Scriptures  into  English,  and  in  the  hope  of  doing 
the  work  under  the  patronage  of  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don ;  but,  to  quote  his  own  words,  he  "  understood  at 
the  last  not  only  that  there  was  no  room  in  my  Lord 
of  London's  palace  to  translate  the  New  Testament, 
but  also  that  there  was  no  place  to  do  it  in  all  Eng- 
land, as  experience  doth  now  openly  declare."  Ac- 
cordingly departing  for  the  Continent  in  1523  or 
1524,  he  soon  had  his  l^ew  Testament  ready  for  the 
press.  The  first  attempt  at  printing  it  at  Cologne 
was  broken  up  by  the  enemies  of  the  Reformation; 
but  he  escaped  with  the  printed  sheets  to  Worms,  and 
there,  towards  the  end  of  the  year,  finished  the  first 
printing  of  the  IN'ew  Testament  in  English. 

His  further  work  in  the  publication  of  the  Script- 
ures was  a  translation  of  the  Pentateuch  from  the  He- 
brew, published  in  1530,  and  a  careful  revision  of  this 
and  of  his  'New  Testament  in  1534  and  1535.  Besides 
these  he  wrote  several  polemical  works,  one  of  which 
especially.  The  Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man,  was  a 
treasured  work  among  the  English  reformers.  He 
met  his  death  in  1536  at  the  hands  of  the  authorities 
of  Antwerp,  after  being  betrayed  into  their  hands  by 
an  Englishman.  Foxe's  story  brings  out  most  touch- 
ingly  the  simple  earnestness  and  good  faith  of  the 
man,  which  made  him  so  easy  a  prey  for  treachery. 
This  is  the  conclusion  of  the  story  of  his  arrest : 


318  THE   BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

"Such  was  the  power  of  his  doctrine  and  the 
sincerity  of  his  Hfe  that  during  the  time  of  his 
imprisonment  (which  endured  a  year  and  a  half)  it 
is  said  he  converted  his  keeper,  the  keeper's  daugh- 
ter, and  others  of  his  household.  Also  the  rest 
that  were  with  Tyndale  conversant  in  the  castle, 
reported  of  him  that  if  he  were  not  a  good  Chris- 
tian man,  they  could  not  tell  whom  to  trust. 

"The  procurator-general,  the  Emperor's  at- 
torney, left  this  testimony  of  him,  that  he  was 
'homo  doctus,  pius,  et  bonus' — a  learned,  a  good, 
and  a  godly  man."  ^ 

Everything  that  we  know  of  Tindale  tells  the 
same  story :  his  whole  life  was  devoted  to  his  mission, 
but  when  he  was  not  called  on  to  testify,  he  was  re- 
tiring and  deeply  humble.  Simple-minded,  trustful, 
full  of  the  warmest  feelings  and  affections,  earnest  in 
his  service  of  God,  he  clung  with  a  faith  which  was 
both  broad-minded  and  single  to  the  simplest  and 
highest  truths  of  the  gospel;  and  the  strength  and 
depth  of  his  belief  carried  him  unflinchingly  to  his 
death  at  the  stake.  In  his  polemical  discussions  with 
Sir  Thomas  More,  he  stands  out  in  contrast  even 
with  that  gentlest  and  most  humorous  man  of  the 
times  for  his  good  sense,  for  his  self-control,  for  his 
broad  spirit  of  tolerance  and  love.  For  prototypes  of 
him  we  must  go  back  to  the  days  of  the  apostles. 

*  Foxe:  Acts  and  Monuments,  London,  1838,  Vol.  V,  p.  127. 


THE  TRANSLATION  319 

There  is  a  striking  resemblance  between  the  temper 
of  Tindale's  own  writings  and  that  of  th^  epistles 
of  St.  Paul,  a  likeness  in  the  habit  of  thought,  in  the 
swift  passage  from  argument  to  exhortation,  in  the 
unconscious  personal  references,  in  the  eagerness  to 
impress  the  truth  upon  the  minds  of  his  readers :  and 
on  the  other  hand,  nowhere  does  the  style  of  the  Bible 
attain  a  higher  earnestness  and  pitch  of  feeling  than 
in  the  translation  of  these  epistles.  It  is  not  fan- 
tastic, I  think,  to  argue  that  this  likeness  in  style 
is  based  upon  a  likeness  of  character :  both  were  edu- 
cated men,  both  were  filled  with  the  spirit  of  God, 
both  were  impelled  to  spread  the  word  of  God  beyond 
the  limits  which  had  been  set  by  the  authorities  of 
the  day,  both  in  the  end  gave  their  lives  for  their 
mission.  If  there  have  been  apostles  since  St.  Paul's 
time,  Tindale  is  surely  one  of  them ;  for  he  had  the 
single  love  for  mankind,  the  consuming  faith,  the  in- 
sight through  accidents  to  the  essentials,  that  fitted 
him  to  be  the  pioneer  in  bringing  back  the  power  of 
the  gospel  to  England.  Xot  every  man  with  a  love 
for  his  fellow-men  can  do  them  all  the  good  he  woukl 
wish ;  nor  do  a  perfect  faith  and  an  insight  that  can- 
not be  baffled  carry  with  them  always  the  power  of 
bringing  light  to  other  men's  minds :  it  was  Tindale's 
endowment  for  his  mission  that  he  added  to  zeal  love, 
— the  quality  which  in  some  ways  is  better  expressed 


320  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

by  our  broader  word  charity^ — and  to  tbem  botb  a 
scholarship  and  soundness  of  judgment  that  gave  a 
new  life  among  his  own  people  to  the  truths  by  which 
he  was  himself  so  deeply  moved. 

Of  Tindale's  scholarship  we  have  ample  testimony 
from  his  contemporaries.  He  met  Sir  Thomas  More, 
the  type  of  the  best  cultivation  of  the  age,  on  more 
than  even  terms;  and  More  himself  wrote  of  him, 
"  Before  he  fell  into  these  frenzies  he  was  taken  for 
full  prettily  learned."  And  the  enemy  who  inter- 
rupted the  printing  at  Cologne  spoke  of  Tindale  as 
"  learned,  skilful  in  languages  and  eloquent.'^  The 
best  proof  of  his  scholarship,  however,  is  in  his  trans- 
lations, and  especially  in  the  fact  that  we  to-day  read 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  our  !N'ew  Testament  and 
of  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  in  his  words. 

At  the  same  time,  to  the  zeal  of  an  apostle  and  the 
instinct  and  training  of  the  scholar  he  added  a  notable 
mastery  of  English  style.  Here  is  an  example  from 
his  prologue  to  Exodus  of  the  lucidity  and  simplic- 
ity, transfused  with  contagious  energy  and  warmth 
of  feeling,  which  characterized  his  own  writing : 

If  any  man  ask  me,  seeing  that  faith  justifieth 
me,  Why  I  work?  I  answer,  Love  compelleth  me. 
For  as  long  as  my  soul  feeleth  what  love  God  hath 
shewed  me  in  Christ,  I  cannot  but  love  God  again, 
and  his  will  and  commandments,  and  of  love  work 


THE  TRANSLATION  321 

them,  nor  can  they  seem  hard  unto  me.  I  think 
myself  not  better  for  my  working,  nor  seek  heaven 
nor  an  higher  place  in  heaven,  because  of  it.  lor 
a  Christian  worketh  to  make  his  weak  brother  per- 
fecter,  and  not  to  seek  an  higher  place  in  heaven. 
I  compare  not  myself  unto  him  that  worketh  not. 
No,  he  that  worketh  not  to-day,  shall  have  grace 
to  turn,  and  to  work  to-morrow;  and  in  the  mean 
season  I  pity  him,  and  pray  for  him.  If  I  had 
wrought  the  will  of  God  these  thousand  years,  and 
another  had  WTOught  the  will  of  the  devil  as  long, 
and  this  day  turn  and  be  as  well  willing  to  suffer 
with  Christ  as  I,  he  hath  this  day  overtaken  me, 
and  is  as  far  come  as  I,  and  shall  have  as  much 
reward  as  I.  And  I  envy  him  not,  but  rejoice  most 
of  all  as  of  lost  treasure  found.  For  if  I  be  of  God, 
I  have  this  thousand  year  suffered  to  win  him  for 
to  come  and  praise  the  name  of  God  with  me.  This 
thousand  years  have  I  prayed,  sorrowed,  longed, 
sighed,  and  sought  for  that  which  I  have  this  day 
found;  and  therefore  I  rejoice  with  all  my  might, 
and  praise  God  for  his  grace  and  mercy. 

•  The  best  single  example  that  wq  have,  however,  of 
what  Tindale  was  both  as  a  man  and  as  a  writer  is 
to  be  found  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  from  Antwerp 
to  his  friend  Frith  when  the  latter  was  in  prison  in 
England,  voluntarily  awaiting  martyrdom  for  the 
truth :  I  know  of  no  more  noble  or  beautiful  piece  of 
English  prose.    Here  is  a  portion  of  it: 


322  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Brother  Jacob,  beloved  in  my  heart !  there  Hveth 
not  in  whom  I  have  so  good  hope  and  trust,  and  in 
whom  my  heart  rejoiceth,  and  my  soul  comforteth 
herself,  as  in  you ;  not  the  thousandth  part  so  much 
for  your  learning,  and  what  other  gifts  else  you  have, 
as  because  you  will  creep  alow  by  the  ground, 
and  walk  in  those  things  that  the  conscience  may 
feel,  and  not  in  the  imaginations  of  the  brain;  in 
fear,  and  not  in  boldness;  in  open  necessary  things, 
and  not  to  pronounce  or  define  of  hid  secrets,  or 
things  that  neither  help  nor  hinder,  whether  it  be 
so  or  no;  in  unity,  and  not  in  seditious  opinions: 
insomuch  that  if  you  be  sure  you  know,  yet  in 
things  that  may  abide  leisure,  you  will  defer,  and 
say  (till  others  agree  with  you),  'Methinks  the 
text  requireth  this  sense  or  understanding/  Yea, 
and  if  you  be  sure  that  if  your  part  be  good,  and 
another  hold  the  contrary,  yet  if  it  be  a  thing 
that  maketh  no  matter,  you  will  laugh  and  let  it 
pass,  and  refer  the  thing  to  other  men,  and  stick 
you  stiff  and  stubbornly  in  earnest  and  necessary 
things.  And  I  trust  you  be  persuaded  even  so  of 
me:  for  I  call  God  to  record  against  the  day  we 
shall  all  appear  before  our  Lord  Jesus,  to  give  a 
reckoning  of  oifr  doings,  that  I  never  altered  one 
syllable  of  God's  word  against  my  conscience,  nor 
would  this  day,  if  all  that  is  in  the  earth,  whether 
it  be  pleasure,  honour,  or  riches,  might  be  given 
me.  Moreover,  I  take  God  to  record  to  my  con- 
science, that  I  desire  of  God  to  myself  in  this  world 
no  more  than  that  without  which  I  cannot  keep 
his  laws. 


THE  TRANSLATION  323 

Finally,  if  there  were  in  me  any  gift  that  could 
help  at  hand,  and  aid  you  if  need  required,  I  promise 
you  I  would  not  be  far  off,  and  commit  the  end  to 
God.  My  soul  is  not  faint,  though  my  body  be 
weary.  But  God  hath  made  me  evil  favoured  in 
this  world,  and  without  grace  in  the  sight  of  men, 
speechless  and  rude,  dull  and  slow  witted;  your 
part  shall  be  to  supply  what  lacketh  in  me ;  remem- 
bering that  as  lowliness  of  heart  shall  make  you 
high  with  God,  even  so  meekness  of  words  shall 
make  you  to  sink  into  the  hearts  of  men.  Nature 
giveth  age  authority,  but  meekness  is  the  glory 
of  youth,  and  giveth  them  honour.  Abundance 
of  love  maketh  me  exceed  in  babbling. 

The  mighty  God  of  Jacob  be  with  you  to  sup- 
plant his  enemies  and  give  you  the  favour  of 
Joseph:  and  the  wisdom  and  the  spirit  of  Stephen 
be  with  your  heart  and  with  your  mouth,  and  teach 
your  lips  what  they  shall  say,  and  how  to  answer  to 
all  things.  He  is  our  God,  if  we  despair  in  our- 
selves, and  trust  in  him:  and  his  is  the  glory.  Amen. 

I  hope  our  redemption  is  nigh. 

William  Tindale.i 

After  such  words,  one  can  add  little.  I  have 
shown,  I  hope,  that  Tindale's  own  style  at  its  best 
rose  to  the  level  of  that  of  the  English  Bible ;  and  his 
own  purpose  and  character  were  so  noble  and  devoted 
that  they  help  to  explain  the  splendid  style  of  his 
^  Foxe:  op.  cit.,  Vol.  V,  p.  133. 


324  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

translation.  His  achievement  for  English  prose  style 
reminds  one  of  the  passage  in  The  Virginians  in 
which  Thackeray,  speaking  of  Washington,  points 
out  that  in  the  war  which  began  in  the  backwoods  of 
America,  and  spread  thence  over  two  continents; 
which  divided  Europe ;  which  deprived  France  of  all 
her  American  possessions,  and  in  the  end  England  of 
most  of  hers, — that  in  all  this  great  war  the  man  who 
came  out  with  the  highest  fame  and  the  most  glory 
was  the  man  who  fired  the  first  shot.  So  in  the  case 
of  Tindale  and  the  art  of  writing  in  English  prose: 
after  nearly  four  centuries  and  all  the  action  and 
the  reaction  of  time  it  is  still  true  that  the  type  of 
prose  style  which  no  good  writer  can  forget,  and 
about  which  all  varieties  of  prose  style  centre,  is  the 
style  of  the  first  man  who  evdr  made  printed  Eng- 
lish speak  to  the  whole  nation.  For  Tindale  fixed 
the  style  of  the  English  Bible.  The  subdued  rich- 
ness, the  strong  beat  of  the  rhythm,  and  all  the  other 
subtler  qualities  which  clothe  the  style  with  its  simple 
and  unconscious  earnestness,  we  owe  to  him,  the  first 
translator.  His  scholarship,  his  genius  for  language, 
fused  by  the  heat  of  his  devotion  to  his  mission  and 
his  deep  piety,  and  guided  by  his  passionate  desire 
to  bring  the  gospel  into  the  hands  of  the  common 
people,  wrought  out  a  style  which  was  worthy  of  the 
message  it  was  to  carry.    Though  he  did  not  complete 


THE  TRANSLATION  325 

the  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  yet  the  New 
Testament  and  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment which  came  from  him,  needed  only  revision  in 
details.  And  it  is  the  crowning  merit  of  the  line  of 
revisers  down  to  and  including  King  James's  com- 
panies, that  they  w^ere  wise  enough  not  to  attempt  to 
alter  the  character  of  the  style. 

That  Tindale  did  fix  the  style  for  the  narrative 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  for  the  E'ew  Testa- 
ment I  can  make  clear  by  quoting  from  his  Penta- 
teuch of  1530  and  his  ]^ew  Testament  of  153-i  three 
familiar  passages — the  first  from  the  story  of  Joseph 
and  his  brethren,  the  second  from  St.  Luke,  the 
third  from  1  Corinthians.  For  the  sake  of  con- 
venience I  modernize  the  spelling;  and  to  make  the 
comparison  clearer  I  italicize  the  words  that  are 
changed  in  the  Authorised  Version. 

And  Joseph  could  no  longer  refrain  [A.  V.  himself] 
before  all  them  that  stood  about  him,  hut  commanded 
that  they  should  go  all  out  from  him,  and  that  there 
should  he  no  man  with  him,  while  he  uttered  himself 
unto  his  brethren.  And  he  wept  aloud,  so  that 
the  Egyptians  and  the  house  of  Pharaoh  heard  it. 
And  he  said  unto  his  brethren:  I  am  Joseph:  doth 
my  father  yet  live?  But  his  brethren  could  not 
answer  him,  for  they  were  abashed  at  his  presence. 

And  Joseph  said  unto  his  brethren :  come  near  to 
me  [A.  V.  I  pray  you],  and  they  came  near.     And 


326  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

he  said :  I  am  Joseph  your  brother,  whom  ye  sold 
into  Egypt.  And  now  be  not  grieved  therewith, 
neither  let  it  seem  a  cruel  thing  in  your  eyes,  that  ye 
sold  me  hither.  For  God  did  send  me  before  you 
to  save  life.  For  this  is  the  second  year  of  dearth  in 
the  land,  and  five  more  are  behind  in  which  there 
shall  neither  be  earing  nor  harvest.^ 

And  there  were  in  the  same  region  shepherds 
abiding  in  the  field  and  watching  their  flock  by  night. 
And  lo,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  stood  hard  by  them 
and  the  brightness  of  the  Lord  shone  round  about 
them,  and  they  were  sore  afraid.  And  the  angel 
said  unto  them,  Be  not  afraid.  [A.  V.  For]  behold  I 
bring  you  [A.  V.  good]  tidings  of  great  joy  that  shall 
come  to  all  the  people ;  for  unto  you  is  born  this  day 
in  the  city  of  David  a  saviour  which  is  Christ  the 
Lord.  And  take  this  for  a  sign:  ye  shall  find  the 
child  swaddled  and  laid  in  a  manger.  And  straight- 
way there  was  with  the  angel  a  multitude  of  heav- 
enly soldiers  lauding  God,  and  saying,  Glory  to  God 
on  high,  and  peace  on  the  earth:  and  unto  men  rejoic" 
ing? 

But  now  is  Christ  risen  from  death  and  is  become 
the  first-fruits  of  them  that  slept.  For  [A.  V.  since] 
by  a  man  came  death  and  by  a  man  came  [A.  V. 
also  the]  resurrection  from  death.  For  as  by  Adam 
all  die,  even  so  by  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive, 
and  every  man  in  his  own  order.  The  first  is 
Christ,  then  they  that  are  Christ's  at  his  coming. 
1  Gen.  xlv.  1-6.  ^  Luke  ii.  8-14. 


THE  TRANSLATION  327 

Then  cometh  the  end  when  he  hath  deHvered  up 
the  kingdom  to  God  [A.  V.  even]  the  father,  when 
he  hath  put  down  all  rule,  [A.  V.  and  all]  authority 
and  power.  For  he  must  rule  till  he  have  put  all 
his  enemies  under  his  feet. 

The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  destroyed  is  death. 
For  he  hath  put  all  things  under  his  feet.  But 
when  he  saith,  all  things  are  put  under  him,  it  is 
manifest  that  he  is  excepted,  which  did  put  all 
things  under  him.  [A.  V.  And]  When  all  things 
are  subdued  unto  him :  then  shall  the  son  also  him- 
self be  subject  unto  him  that  put  all  things  under 
him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all  things.^ 

Examples  like  these  may  be  found  almost  anywhere 
in  the  IN'ew  Testament  or  in  what  Tindale  trans- 
lated of  the  Old  Testament.  They  show  that  the 
style  which  he  set  in  the  beginning  all  the  revisers 
after  him  had  the  discretion  to  preserve.  By  one  of 
the  curious  unfathered  traditions  which  make  up  so 
much  of  the  literary  history  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury Coverdale  has  been  credited  with  adding  the 
"  grace  "  of  style  which  is  said  to  mark  the  Author- 
ised Version.  ^'  Grace  "  is  not  a  very  happy  term  for 
any  style  so  robust  and  earnest,  and  Coverdale  may 
well  share  with  the  other  men  who  worked  over  Tin- 
dale's  words  some  of  the  praise  for  the  perfect  flex- 
ibility and  smoothness  attained  by  the  final  version: 
1 1  Cor.  XV  20-28. 


328  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

but  it  is  enough  credit  to  their  discretion  and  literary 
sense  that  they  did  not  blunt  the  clearness  and  force 
which  Tindale  left  as  the  crowning  virtues  of  his 
noble  prose.  To  him  we  may  safely  ascribe  all  the 
most  important  qualities  of  the  translation, — the  en- 
ergy, the  contagious  earnestness,  the  unassuming  dig- 
nity and  the  vividness, — by  which  it  holds  its  place 
in  our  literature.  He  once  for  all  in  his  version  de- 
termined the  style  of  the  English  Bible. 


VII 


Tindale,  however,  did  not  complete  the  work  of  the 
translation.  After  he  had  prepared  his  New  Testa- 
ment and  his  Pentateuch  he  turned  aside  from  the 
work  of  rendering  the  Scriptures  into  English,  to 
take  his  part  in  other  ways  in  advancing  the  Kefor- 
mation.  Besides  these,  however,  it  is  practically  cer- 
tain that  the  other  historical  books  through  2  Chron- 
icles in  Matthew's  Bible  of  1537  came  from  his 
hands.  The  evidence  may  be  found  in  any  manual  of 
the  history  of  the  English  Bible.  A  large  and  impor- 
tant part  of  the  Old  Testament,  therefore,  still 
waited  for  a  translator.  The  lack  was  supplied  in 
Coverdale's  Bible  of  1535. 

Miles  Coverdale,  to  whom  we  owe  the  first  com- 
plete translation  of  the  Bible  in  English,  had  a  long 


THE  TRANSLATION  329 

and  varied  career.  Beginning  under  the  patronage 
of  Thomas  Cromwell  as  a  useful  and  willing  laborer 
in  the  establishment  of  the  liberal  principles  which 
were  Cromwell's  political  stock  in  trade,  he  was  at 
this  period  of  his  life,  as  his  work  on  the  Bible  shows, 
of  a  conciliatory  temper ;  in  his  old  age  he  had  so  far 
advanced  in  Puritan  principles  that  he  was  unwilling 
to  wear  a  surplice  in  order  to  take  up  again  the  see 
of  Exeter,  of  which  he  had  been  deprived  in  the 
reign  of  Marj.  He  was  entirely  humble  about  his 
o^vn  capacities  as  a  translator.  His  Bible,  so  far  as 
it  is  independent  of  Tindale,  is  frankly  a  translation 
from  secondary  sources.  The  title  page  of  the  first 
issue  declares  the  book  to  be  ''  faithfully  and  truly 
translated  out  of  Dutch  and  Latin  into  English," 
^^  Dutch  "  being  the  usage  of  the  time  for  German; 
his  dedication  to  the  king  declares  that  he  had  "  with 
a  clear  conscience  purely  and  faithfully  translated 
this  out  of  ^ve  sundry  interpreters,  having  only  the 
manifest  truth  of  the  Scripture  before  mine  eyes  " ; 
and  in  his  preface  to  "  the  Christian  Header,"  he 
adds :  "  And  to  help  me  herein  I  have  had  sundry 
translations,  not  only  in  Latin,  but  also  of  the  Dutch 
interpreters,  whom,  because  of  their  singular  gifts 
and  special  diligence  in  the  Bible,  I  have  been  the 
more  glad  to  follow  for  the  most  part,  according  as  I 
was  required."     These  five  sundry  interpreters  have 


330  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

been  proved  to  be  the  Swiss-German  or  Ziiricli  version 
of  1524-29,  the  Latin  translation  of  Pagniniis,  Lu- 
ther's German  Bible,  the  Vulgate,  and  Tindale  so  far 
as  he  was  available.  In  the  Pentateuch  and  the  New 
Testament  Coverdale  followed  Tindale  pretty  closely, 
but  with  revision  by  aid  of  the  German  versions; 
elsewhere  his  chief  dependence  was  the  Swiss-German 
Bible.  In  the  Old  Testament  he  had  the  Vulgate 
constantly  before  him  and  reproduced  in  the  Eng- 
lish text  many  additions  which  had  crept  into  its 
text  in  the  course  of  the  Middle  Ages.  An  example 
of  these  may  be  found  in  verses  5-7  of  Psalm  xiv  in 
the  Booh  of  Common  Prayer.  The  Psalter  here  is 
from  Coverdale's  translation  in  the  Great  Bible :  and 
these  verses  are  found  in  the  Septuagint  and  the  Vul- 
gate but  not  in  the  Hebrew.  In  all  his  work  on  the 
Bible  Coverdale  treated  the  Latin  text  of  the  Vul- 
gate in  this  spirit  of  liberal  hospitality.  The  line 
between  the  Protestants  and  the  Roman  Catholics 
had  not  yet  been  drawn  with  the  subsequent  bitter 
sharpness:  Henry  VIII  and  Cromwell  still  hoped 
that  the  Church  of  England,  though  it  was  cut  loose 
from  the  Pope,  might  remain  a  part  of  the  great 
Church  Catholic;  and  in  matters  of  minor  impor- 
tance, as  were  most  of  these  inflations  of  the  text, 
Coverdale  was  ready  to  follow  their  lead.  Indeed 
he  went  further  than  this,  for  in  1538  he  published 


THE  TRANSLATION  331 

a  !N^ew  Testament  in  which  he  printed  in  parallel 
columns  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate  and  a  version 
of  the  English  in  which  Tindale's  language  was 
brought  still  further  into  conformity  with  the  text  of 
the  Vulgate.  His  first  purpose  seems  to  have  been 
like  that  of  the  Zurich  version^  to  reproduce  the  sub- 
stance and  the  spirit  of  his  originals  without  burden- 
ing himself  with  too  much  care  for  scrupulous  ac- 
curacy of  detail.  The  character  of  his  work  may  be 
judged  by  the  Psalter  of  the  Booh  of  Common 
Prayer,  which  is  his  version  as  he  finally  left  it  in 
the  Great  Bible. 

Unquestionably  Coverdale  had  an  ear  for  rhythm 
and  for  the  subtle  turn  of  the  phrase,  which  add  the 
expressive  power  of  music  to  the  words ;  and  the  very 
fact  that  he  did  not  hold  himself  closely  bound  to  the 
letter  of  the  original  gave  this  gift  freer  play.  From 
him  we  get  many  felicitous  turns  of  phrase,  such 
as  the  following :  ''  Thou  canst  not  make  one  hair 
white  or  black/'  in  place  of  Tindale's  "  Thou  canst 
not  make  one  white  hair  or  black '' ;  "  she  brought 
forth  her  first-born  son "  for  Tindale's  "  first 
son  '^ ;  in  the  account  of  the  transfiguration,  "  a  bright 
cloud  overshadowed  them  "  for  Tindale's  '^  shadowed 
them  '^ ;  and,  for  a  final  example,  '^  is  become  the 
headstone  in  the  corner,"  where  Tindale  had  trans- 
lated ^'  is  set  in  the  principal  part  of  the  corner." 


3^2  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

In  the  last  case  Coverdale  himself  in  the  Great  Bible 
brought  the  passage  to  the  form  in  which  we  read  it 
to-day. 

A  still  more  important  contribution  of  Coverdale 
to  the  translation  of  the  Bible  was  his  service  in 
confirming  the  principle  already  asserted  by  Tindale, 
that  the  English  Bible  should  be  translated  into  the 
language  of  everyday  life  and  that  it  should  not  be 
cumbered  and  obscured  by  learned  words.  In  some 
places  his  version  seems  even  more  homely  than  that 
of  Tindale,  almost  as  if  he  had  gone  out  of  his  way 
to  keep  in  touch  with  the  speech  of  everyday  life. 
For  example,  in  the  account  of  the  anointing  of  Saul 
to  be  king  he  translates,  "  Then  took  Samuel  a  glass 
of  oil  and  poured  it  upon  his  head  '^ ;  and  there  is  a 
phrase  in  Jeremiah  which  has  given  a  popular  name 
to  his  Bible :  "  There  is  no  treacle  in  Gilead.^' 

In  general  we  may  consider  that  Coverdale's  spe- 
cial contribution  to  our  English  Bible  lay  in  the  di- 
rection of  freedom  and  of  the  musical  smoothness 
and  flow  through  which  alone  language  is  able  to  ex- 
press some  of  our  deepest  feelings.  In  point  of  ac- 
curacy of  translation  he  had  little  to  add,  though 
he  undoubtedly  made  available  some  renderings  in 
which  the  Swiss-German  and  the  Vulgate  had  an  ad- 
vantage, and  thus  added  to  the  stock  of  phrasings 
from  which  the  revisers  of  1611  drew.     Though  the 


THE  TRANSLATION  333 

part  of  the  Bible  which  came  from  him  needed  much 
revision,  his  influence  in  strengthening  the  rhythm 
and  other  musical  qualities  of  the  English  Bible  is 
important.  Tindale's  work  being  that  of  a  pioneer, 
is  at  times  a  little  abrupt ;  and  the  Geneva  version  of 
1560,  the  next  important  revision  in  the  history  of 
our  Bible,  tended  to  insist  on  literalism  of  rendering, 
sometimes  to  the  injury  of  the  sound.  Coverdale's 
work,  both  in  his  own  version  and  in  the  Great  Bible, 
was  a  counterbalancing  influence  in  favor  of  expres- 
siveness in  English  rather  than  a  slavish  rendering 
of  the  literal  words  and  order  of  the  Hebrew  and 
Greek.  Since  the  deep  and  thorough  permeation  of 
the  English  Bible  and  its  language  into  our  literature 
and  our  everyday  speech  is  largely  due  to  this  ex- 
quisite happiness  and  expressiveness  of  phrase,  Cov- 
erdale  too  must  have  his  niche  in  the  temple  of  Eng- 
lish literature. 

The  next  two  versions  of  the  English  Bible — that 
known  as  Matthew's,  published  in  1537,  and  the 
Great  Bible,  of  which  the  first  two  editions  are  fre- 
quently spoken  of  as  Cromwell's  and  Cramner's,  made 
no  great  change  in  the  text.  Matthew's  Bible  was  ed- 
ited by  the  John  Rogers  who  was  the  first  martyr  in 
Mary's  reign.  The  importance  of  this  version  is 
that  in  it  appears  for  the  first  time  a  new  transla- 
tion of  the  books  from  Joshua  through  2  Chronicles 


384  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

which  it  is  almost  certain  was  the  work  of  Tindale. 
John  Rogers,  who  was  chaplain  to  the  Merchant  Ad- 
venturers in  Antwerp  at  the  time  of  Tindale^s  ar- 
rest and  trial,  was  his  literary  executor  and  received 
from  him,  probahly  at  this  time,  the  manuscript  of 
this  translation,  which  he  incorporated  in  the  Bible 
that  he  carried  through  the  press  the  year  after 
Tindale's  death.  Otherwise  the  changes  made  in 
this  version  are  small  and  unimportant. 

The  Great  Bible  was  the  first  version  of  the  Bible 
to  be  made  with  the  open  authority  of  the  govern- 
ment. In  1538  Cromwell  sent  Coverdale  to  Paris, 
where  there  were  better  printers,  to  put  through  the 
press  a  version  of  the  Bible  which  should  be  officially 
recognised  by  the  English  Church.  Coverdale  under- 
took the  work  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  he  had  pre- 
pared his  own  version.  His  scholarship  was  ade- 
quate to  enable  him  to  use  the  Latin  and  German 
translations  intelligently,  but  apparently  not  full 
enough  to  send  him  to  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  for 
himself.  ^Nevertheless,  with  the  aid  of  a  new  Latin 
version  of  the  Old  Testament  made  from  the  Hebrew 
by  Sebastian  Miinster,  Coverdale  revised  the  text  of 
Matthew's  Bible,  and  the  result  was  a  version  appar- 
ently as  good  as  could  have  been  produced  without 
going  direct  to  the  originals. 

These  three  versions  of  the  complete  Bible, — Cov- 


THE  TRANSLATION  335 

erdale's,  Matthew's  and  the  Great  Bible, — were  pro- 
duced at  a  time  when  feeling  on  the  subject  of  relig- 
ion was  strong  and  eager,  but  before  it  had  risen  to 
the  withering  heat  and  bitterness  of  Elizabeth's  reign, 
when  the  Church  of  England  stood  between  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  the  Inquisition  loom- 
ing behind  it,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  uncompromis- 
ing doctrinal  zeal  of  the  Calvinists  on  the  other.  Eor 
about  twenty  years  after  the  appearance  of  the  Great 
Bible  the  churchmen  of  England  were  too  much  oc- 
cupied with  other  matters  to  go  farther  with  the 
translation  of  the  Bible.  The  latter  part  of  Henry's 
reign  was  a  period  on  the  whole  of  reaction,  in 
which  the  free  reading  of  the  Bible  by  all  the  people 
was  not  an  object  very  dear  to  the  hearts  of  the 
authorities.  In  Edward's  reign  the  Reformation  was 
pushed  forward;  but  especially  under  Xorthumber- 
land  it  was  more  a  device  of  politics  and  a  cloak  for 
personal  greed  than  the  expression  of  any  high  spirit 
of  religion.  Cranmer,  conciliatory  in  temper  and 
anxious  to  find  a  path  which  all  men  could  follow, 
was  occupied  with  the  government  of  the  Church  and 
with  the  preparing  of  the  Boole  of  Common  Prayer 
from  the  ancient  service  books  of  the  church  cath- 
olic. The  printing  of  the  Bible,  however,  went  for- 
ward during  this  period  at  an  immense  rate.  In  the 
six  and  a  half  years  of  Edward's  reign  it  is  said  that 


B36  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

thirty-five  editions  of  the  'New  Testament  and  thir- 
teen of  the  whole  Bible  were  printed  in  England; 
but  these  were  all  reprints  of  former  versions,  with- 
out any  attempt  to  remove  their  imperfections.  It 
was  not  until  the  persecution  of  Mary's  reign  drove 
the  Protestants  out  of  England  and  kept  them  in  ex- 
ile on  the  Continent  that  they  found  time  to  turn 
their  attention  to  the  preparation  of  a  more  accurate 
version  of  the  Bible. 

VIII 

Their  version  was  made  at  Geneva  under  the  in- 
spiration of  the  strong  church  of  Calvin,  and  it  was 
made  by  members  of  the  extreme  Calvinist  party 
among  the  English.  In  the  twenty  years  which  had 
elapsed  since  Coverdale's  labors,  much  study  had 
been  given  to  the  Bible.  A  new  Latin  version  of  the 
Old  Testament,  made  from  the  Hebrew,  had  been 
completed  by  German  and  French  scholars;  and  the 
Greek  text  of  the  New  Testament  had  been  improved 
by  the  labors  of  Eobert  Stephens,  who  also  for  the 
first  time  divided  the  New  Testament  into  verses  in 
his  Greek-Latin  version  of  1551.  From  Stephens' 
Greek  text  Theodore  Beza,  the  friend  and  successor 
of  Calvin,  had  made  a  new  Latin  version  which  af- 
fected all  subsequent  revisions  of  the  New  Testament. 


THE  TRANSLATION  337 

With  these  aids  a  small  company  of  exiles  under 
the  leadership  of  William  Whittingham  set  to  work 
at  Geneva  in  the  last  years  of  Mary's  reign  to  pre- 
pare a  version  of  the  Bible  which  should  be  before 
all  things  rigorously  accurate.  To  this  strict  accu- 
racy the  Calvinists  gave  an  importance  which  it  did 
not  have  for  the  broader  principles  of  the  English 
Church,  for  they  held  that  the  Bible  contained  within 
its  covers  the  whole  body  of  the  revelation  of  God 
to  man,  from  which  in  turn  could  be  deduced  every 
principle  and  rule  necessary  for  the  guidance  of  life. 
An  accurate  rendering  of  the  strict  letter  of  the  law 
was  to  them  therefore  of  supreme  importance.  The 
position  of  English  churchmen  was  fairly  repre- 
sented by  Coverdale;  for  to  them  the  will  of  God 
was  also  known  through  the  acts  of  his  church,  and 
the  Scriptures  were  to  be  interpreted  and  understood 
through  the  teachings  of  the  church.  In  their  eyes 
an  anxiously  literal  translation  was  of  less  impor- 
tance than  one  which  should  convey  the  essential 
spirit.  The  principle  of  the  Genevan  revisers  is  to 
our  modern  views  the  better,  since  a  version  which 
only  comes  somewhere  near  giving  the  meaning  of 
the  original  cannot  become  final ;  and  their  contribu- 
tion of  laborious  accuracy  is  not  to  be  underestimated. 
In  this  spirit  the  Genevan  revisers  went  through 
both  Old  and  'New  Testaments  word  by  word  and 


338  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

verse  by  verse;  and,  especially  in  the  poetical  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  prophets,  their  labors 
brought  the  text  far  nearer  to  the  form  in  which 
we  read  it  to-day  than  it  had  been  before.  In  the 
'New  Testament  the  changes,  though  numerous,  were 
generally  less  important;  for  Tindale's  genius  had 
brought  the  translation  of  the  New  Testament  very 
much  nearer  to  perfection  than  had  Coverdale's 
labors  on  the  Old  Testament.  Here  again  a  study  of 
the  history  of  the  English  Bible  makes  clear  the 
amount  of  patient  scholarship  which  went  to  the 
perfection  of  our  Bible. 

The  Genevan  version,  one  must  remember,  like 
Tindale^s  version,  was  produced  in  exile  by  men  who 
were  driven  out  of  their  homes  and  brought  into  peril 
of  their  lives  by  their  devotion  to  their  view  of  relig- 
ion and  their  desire  to  see  the  Bible  read  freely  by 
all  their  countrymen.  This  fervor  and  devotion  of 
spirit  we  may  well  suppose  was  enough  to  prevent 
their  version  from  being  dominated  by  too  literal  an 
attention  to  the  single  words.  The  Bible  was  to  them 
far  more  than  a  collection  of  difficult  passages  and 
words  whose  idiom  did  not  exactly  fit  with  that  of 
English :  to  them  it  was  the  living  word  of  God  and 
the  one  guide  for  the  upright  man  in  the  conduct 
of  his  everyday  life.  And  their  labors  in  bringing 
the  text  of  the  Bible  to  greater  accuracy  set  a  new 


THE  TRANSLATION  339 

standard:  after  them  no  Bible  could  hold  its  own 
which  did  not  render  the  original  language  with  the 
greatest  possible  approach  to  literalness.  They  es- 
tablished the  principle  of  going  direct  to  the  Hebrew 
for  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament  and  to  the  Greek 
for  that  of  the  Xew ;  and  so  far  as  Protestants  were 
concerned,  they  removed  the  corruptions  and  the  di- 
versities of  readings  which  make  the  Vulgate  an 
unsafe  guide  for  popular  understanding  of  the 
Scriptures. 

The  next  version  of  the  Bible  in  chronological  or- 
der, the  Bishops'  Bible,  though  it  was  nominally  the 
basis  of  the  King  James  Bible,  is  in  reality  of  less 
importance  than  any  of  the  versions  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  since  its  changes  made  few  improvements  on 
the  readings  of  the  Great  Bible,  and  most  of  these 
improvements  were  taken  over  from  the  Genevan 
version.  Indeed  the  latter  made  the  Bishops'  Bible 
necessary  by  its  immediate  and  wide  circulation 
which  called  attention  to  the  many  inaccuracies  and 
imperfections  of  the  Great  Bible.  Archbishop  Parker, 
who  directed  and  shared  in  the  revision,  committed 
different  books  to  various  of  his  colleagues  on  the 
bench  and  to  a  few  other  scholars.  The  work  was 
imevenly  done  and  the  version  never  had  wide  cir- 
culation. The  eagerness  of  the  publishers  to  recoup 
themselves  for  the  printing  of  the  large  and  handsome 


340  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

folio  in  which  most  editions  of  it  appeared  sufficed  to 
set  it  up  in  a  good  many  churches;  but  it  never  at- 
tained the  popularity  of  the  Genevan  version,  which 
for  the  rest  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  even  for 
a  dozen  or  fifteen  years  after  the  appearance  of  the 
King  James  version  was  the  Bible  of  the  great  mass 
of  English  people. 

The  last  version  which  we  must  consider  before 
we  come  to  the  King  James  Bible  itself  is  the  edition 
of  the  New  Testament  commonly  known  as  the  Rhe- 
mish  Testament^  from  the  fact  that  it  was  made  by 
members  of  the  Roman  Catholic  seminary  at  Rheims. 
In  the  controversies  between  the  Protestants  and  the 
Catholics  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  the  Catholics 
had  been  at  a  disadvantage  because  they  had  had  no 
version  of  the  Scriptures  which  they  could  quote  to 
the  confusion  of  their  opponents.  Accordingly  Car- 
dinal Allen,  as  part  of  his  campaign  for  the  recovery 
of  England  to  the  old  church,  authorised  Gregory 
Martin,  who  had  been  a  Eellow  of  St.  John's  Col- 
lege at  Oxford,  and  who  was  a  distinguished  scholar 
in  both  Hebrew  and  Greek^  to  undertake  a  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible.  It  was  to  be  from  the  Vulgate, 
which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  had  declared  to 
be  the  only  true  text  of  the  Scriptures,  and  it  was  to 
be  translated  into  a  language  which  should  in  no  way 
be  stripped  of  the  rich  burden  of  doctrine  found  by 


THE  TRANSLATION  341 

the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  almost  every  phrase 
and  sentence  both  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  ISTew. 
The  result  is  at  first  glance  monstrous.  It  contains 
such  examples  as  the  following :  in  the  Lord's  prayer, 
"  Give  us  to-day  our  supersubstantial  bread " ;  in 
Acts  i.  2,  Until  the  day  wherein  ^'  he  was  assumpted  "  ; 
in  Hebrews  xiii.  16, ''  Beneficence  and  communication 
do  not  forget,  for  with  such  hosts  God  is  promerited  '' 
(^^  to  do  good  and  communicate  forget  not,  for  with 
such  sacrifices  God  is  well  pleased  ").  The  Latin  of 
the  last  passage  will  show  the  principle  on  which 
Martin  w^orked:  Beneficentice  autem,  et  communi- 
onis  nolUe  ohlivisci:  talibus  enim  liostiis  'promeretur 
Deus.  His  purpose  was,  though  making  a  trans- 
lation into  English,  to  reproduce  slavishly  every 
word  which  in  the  course  of  the  Middle  Ages  had 
acquired  any  ecclesiastical  or  theological  connotation 
or  even  a  suspicion  of  such  connotation.  He  and  his 
superiors  intended  to  send  the  layman  continually  to 
the  priest  for  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  and 
to  guard  in  every  possible  way  against  spreading  the 
opinion  that  a  layman  was  as  competent  to  under- 
stand the  Scriptures  as  was  the  Church. 

If  this  grotesqueness  were  all  that  distinguished 
this  version  from  others,  we  should  never  have  heard 
of  it  except  as  a  literary  curiosity.  Martin,  however, 
was  not  only  zealous  for  the  doctrines  of  his  church, 


342  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

but  he  was  also  an  admirable  scholar  in  Greek ;  and 
where  his  principle  of  translation  allowed  him  to 
be  so,  he  was  exquisitely  sensitive  to  the  shades  of 
meaning  in  the  English  words  and  the  expressiveness 
of  English  style.  In  many  cases  he  found  a  more 
exact  translation  for  the  Greek  word,  as  in  the  Par- 
able of  the  Sower,  "  and  some  fell  upon  a  rock  "  in 
place  of  "  stones  '^  and  "  pleasures  of  this  life  "  for 
"  voluptuous  living  " ;  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
"  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness,''  for  "  all 
thy  body  " ;  in  Hebrews  xii.  28,  "  and  to  the  spirits 
of  just  men  made  perfect,"  for  "  of  just  and  perfect 
men  " ;  and  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  again,  "  but 
thou,  when  thou  prayest ''  for  "  when  thou  prayest." 
In  each  of  these  cases  the  Greek  is  rendered  more 
accurately  or  more  sensitively.  In  many  other  cases 
Martin  by  a  slight  change  in  the  order  of  the  words 
gave  a  final  fitness  to  the  phrase :  for  example,  "  What 
therefore  God  hath  joined  together  let  not  man  put 
asunder,"  in  place  of  "  let  not  therefore  man  put 
asunder  that  which  God  hath  coupled  together " ; 
"  the  rich  he  hath  sent  empty  away,"  for  "  hath  sent 
away  the  rich  empty " ;  and  in  1  Corinthians  xi 
"  the  head  of  Christ  is  God,"  for  "  God  is  Christ's 
head." 

Furthermore  since  this  Ehemish  l^ew  Testament 
was  a  translation  from  the  Vulgate,   and  since  it 


THE  TRANSLATION  343 

aimed  to  keep  the  vocabulary  of  the  Vulgate  as  far 
as  possible,  it  brought  into  the  English  Bible  a  con- 
siderable number  of  Latinate  words,  a  good  many 
of  which  were  taken  over  from  this  version  by  the 
revisers  of  1611.  Thirty  words  from  the  Vulgate 
which  are  found  in  the  Authorised  Version  appear 
first  in  the  Rhemish  'New  Testament;  and  in  nearly 
two  hundred  places  words  from  the  Vulgate  which 
took  the  place  of  other  words,  generally  not  Latin- 
ate,  have  been  retained  in  the  Authorised  Version. 
A  few  such  words  are  founded^  derided,  malefactor^ 
clemency,  conformed  to,  contemptihlCy  illuminated, 
sobriety.  The  effect  of  such  words  in  enriching  the 
tones  of  our  Bible  is  obvious.  If  this  version  had 
not  been  made  and  had  not  been  used  so  freely  by 
the  revisers  of  1611,  it  is  certain  that  our  English 
Bible  would  have  lacked  something  of  its  richness 
of  sound. 

In  itself  and  for  the  purpose  which  it  was  sent  out 
this  Rhemish  New  Testament  accomplished  only 
evil  for  its  makers.  Its  monstrous  obscuration  of  the 
plain  text  of  the  Scriptures  was  a  strong  weapon  for 
the  Protestants,  and  it  was  almost  immediately  re- 
printed by  them  in  parallel  columns  with  the  New 
Testament  of  the  Bishops'  Bible,  to  be  used  as  a 
patent  demonstration  of  the  purpose  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  to  obscure  and  obstruct  the  reading 


344  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

of  the  Scriptures.  Its  only  permanent  result  is  thus 
a  pretty  bit  of  the  irony  of  history.  Gregory  Martin, 
who  made  the  translation^  had  given  himself,  in 
singleness  of  mind,  in  exile,  and  in  hardships  com- 
parable to  those  suffered  by  Tindale,  to  this  work  of 
making  a  translation  which  should  help  to  recover 
his  fellow-countrymen  to  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
true  faith;  and,  like  Tindale,  he  gave  up  his  life  to 
his  work,  for  he  died  of  consumption  at  Paris  in 
October  of  the  year  in  which  his  ISTew  Testament  was 
published.  Yet  the  only  result  of  his  toil  was  to  im- 
prove the  version  which  rendered  all  his  efforts  fu- 
tile ;  for  all  that  was  valuable  of  his  labors  was  taken 
over  by  the  Authorised  Version.  Practically,  then, 
the  fruits  of  Gregory  Martin's  toil  and  self-sacri- 
fice were  the  furtherance  of  the  cause  which  he  ab- 
horred. 


IX 


The  origin  of  the  Authorised  Version  seems  to  go 
back  to  an  incidental  remark  made  by  King  James 
at  a  conference  of  the  two  wings  of  the  English 
Church,  called  in  June,  1604,  to  consider  a  petition 
of  the  Puritans  against  the  rights  and  ceremonies 
of  the  Established  Church.  Dr.  Reynolds,  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Puritan  party,   objected  to  the 


THE  TRANSLATION  345 

inaccuracies  of  the  Bishops'  Bible,  whereupon  the 
King  suggested  a  new  revision,  made  by  authority, 
which  could  be  accepted  by  all  parties.     For  some 
months  little  was  done;  but  by  the  end  of  June  a 
list  of  scholars  who  should  take  part  in  the  revision 
was  ready  for  submission  to  James.     The  revision 
itself,  however,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  seriously 
undertaken  till  1607.     The  rules  set  for  the  revisers 
contemplated  six  companies  of  nine  scholars  each, 
working  at  Westminster,   Oxford,   and   Cambridge, 
one  company  at  each  place  taking  the  Old  Testament 
and  another  the  'New.    The  rules  prescribed  that  the 
basis  of  the  revision  should  be  the  Bishops'  Bible, 
but  Tindale's,  Matthew's,  Coverdale's,  Whitchurch's 
(the  Great  Bible),  the  Genevan,  "to  be  used  when 
they  agree  better  with  the  text  than  the  Bishops' 
Bible  " ;  that  each  scholar  should  bring  his  private 
notes  to  a  meeting  of  the  company  to  which  he  be- 
longed; and  that  the  companies  should  exchange  the 
results  on  which  each  of  them  had  been  agreed.     The 
revisers,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  treated  their  in- 
structions liberally  enough  to  include  the  Rhemish 
^ew  Testament  among  the  sources  which  they  used. 
The  spirit  of  their  work  seems  to  have  been  large- 
minded  and  catholic.    There  were  moderate  Puritans 
engaged  in  the  work  with  High  Churchmen,  and  all 
seem  to  have  performed  their  labors  in  a  sincere  de- 


346  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

sire  to  reach  a  conclusion  which  would  be  acceptable 
to  all  parties  of  the  Church.  They  went  at  their 
work  seriously  and  spared  no  labor  to  make  it  per- 
fect. Their  own  quaint  description  of  their  labors 
in  the  address  to  the  Eeader  is  worth  quoting: 

Neither  did  we  run  over  the  work  with  that  post- 
ing haste  that  the  Septuagint  did,  if  that  be  true 
which  is  reported  of  them,  that  they  finished  it  in 
seventy  two  days;  neither  were  we  barred  or  hin- 
dered from  going  over  it  again,  having  once  done 
it,  like  St.  Hierome,  if  that  be  true  which  himself 
reporteth,  that  he  could  no  sooner  write  anything, 
but  presently  it  was  caught  from  him,  and  published, 
and  he  could  not  have  leave  to  mend  it :  neither,  to 
be  short,  were  we  the  first  that  fell  in  hand  with 
translating  the  Scripture  into  English,  and  con- 
sequently destitute  of  former  helps,  as  it  is  written 
of  Origen,  that  he  was  the  first  in  a  manner,  that 
put  his  hand  to  write  commentaries  upon  the 
Scriptures,  and  therefore  no  marvel  if  he  overshot 
himself  many  times.  None  of  these  things:  the 
work  hath  not  been  huddled  up  in  seventy  two  days, 
but  hath  cost  the  workmen,  as  light  as  it  seemeth, 
the  pains  of  twice  seven  times  seventy  two  days, 
and  more.  Matters  of  such  weight  and  conse- 
quence are  to  be  speeded  with  maturity:  for  in  a 
business  of  moment  a  man  feareth  not  the  blame 
of  convenient  slackness.  Neither  did  we  think 
much  to  consult  the  translators  or  commentators, 
Chaldee,  Hebrew,  Syrian,  Greek,  or  Latin;  no,  nor 


THE  TRANSLATION  347 

the  Spanish,  French,  Italian,  or  Dutch;  neither  did 
we  disdain  to  revise  that  which  we  had  done,  and 
to  bring  back  to  the  anvil  that  which  we  had  ham- 
mered :  but  having  and  using  as  great  helps  as  were 
needful,  and  fearing  no  reproach  for  slowness,  nor 
coveting  praise  for  expedition,  we  have  at  the 
length,  through  the  good  hand  of  the  Lord  upon  us, 
brought  the  work  to  that  pass  that  you  see. 

So  far  as  can  be  judged  from  this  quaintly  learned 
address  of  "  the  Translators  to  the  Header/'  they 
seem  to  have  been  more  affected  by  the  attacks  of  the 
Catholics  on  the  English  versions,  especially  as  set 
forth  in  the  prefaces  and  notes  of  the  Rhemish  I^ew 
Testament,  than  by  the  scruples  of  the  Puritans. 
Certainly  a  much  larger  portion  of  their  space  is 
given  to  meeting  the  arguments  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics. This  strong  opposition  to  the  principles  of 
translation  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  however,  though 
important  at  that  time,  in  the  end  did  not  contribute 
to  exactness  and  uniformity  of  phrasing.  The  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  insisted  with  all  its  authority 
on  the  literal  text  of  the  Vulgate,  for  on  such  words 
as  poenitentiay  hostia,  ordines,  and  ecclesia  were  built 
many  of  its  most  important  doctrines  and  dogmas; 
and  it  held  this  principle  so  important  that  the 
makers  of  the  Rhemish  version  marred  their  work 
as  we  have  seen  by  barbarous  transliterations  of  the 


348  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Latin  words  into  English.  The  revisers  of  1611,  to 
avoid  any  danger  of  such  a  slavish  dependence  on  the 
letter  of  the  translation  growing  up  to  obscure  its 
real  meaning,  went  out  of  their  way,  where  variety 
was  not  misleading,  to  use  different  English  words 
for  the  same  Hebrew  or  Greek  word ;  and  half  mock- 
ingly they  defended  their  principle  in  the  address 
to  the  Eeader : 

Another  thing  we  think  good  to  admonish  thee 
of,  gentle  Reader,  that  we  have  not  tied  ourselves 
to  an  uniformity  of  phrasing,  or  to  an  identity  of 
words,  as  some  perad venture  would  wish  that  we 
had  done,  because  they  observe,  that  some  learned 
men  somewhere  have  been  as  exact  as  they  could 
that  way.  Truly,  that  we  might  not  vary  from 
the  sense  of  that  which  we  had  translated  before,  if 
the  word  signified  the  same  thing  in  both  places, 
(for  there  be  some  words  that  be  not  of  the  same 
sense  every  where)  we  were  especially  careful,  and 
made  a  conscience  according  to  our  duty.  But 
that  we  should  express  the  same  notion  in  the  same 
particular  word;  as  for  example,  if  we  translate  the 
Hebrew  or  Greek  word  once  by  purpose,  never  to 
call  it  intent;  if  one  where  journeying,  never  travel- 
ling; if  one  where  think,  never  suppose;  if  one  where 
pain,  never  ache;  if  one  where  joy,  never  gladness, 
&c.,  thus  to  mince  the  matter,  we  thought  to 
savour  more  of  curiosity  than  wisdom,  and  that 
rather  it  would  breed  scorn  in  the  atheist,  than 


THE  TRANSLATION  349 

bring  piofit  to  the  godly  reader.  For  is  the  king- 
dom of  God  become  words  or  syllables?  Why 
should  we  be  in  bondage  to  them,  if  we  may  be 
free?  use  one  precisely,  when  we  may  use  another 
no  less  fit  as  commodiously?  A  godly  Father  in 
the  primitive  time  shewed  himself  greatly  moved, 
that  one  of  newfangleness  called  Kpdpparov,  a-Ktfi- 
TTovs,^  though  the  difference  be  Uttle  or  none;  and 
another  reporteth,  that  he  was  much  abused  for 
turning  cucurbita  (to  which  reading  the  people  had 
been  used)  into  hedera?  Now  if  this  happen  in  bet- 
ter times,  and  upon  so  small  occasions,  we  might 
justly  fear  hard  censure,  if  generally  we  should 
make  verbal  and  unnecessary  changings.  We  might 
also  be  charged  (by  scoffers)  with  some  unequal 
dealing  towards  a  great  number  of  good  English 
words.  For  as  it  is  written  of  a  certain  great 
Philosopher,  that  he  should  say,  that  those  logs 
were  happy  that  were  made  images  to  be  wor- 
shipped; for  their  fellows,  as  good  as  they,  lay  for 
blocks  behind  the  fire:  so  if  we  should  say,  as  it 
were,  unto  certain  words.  Stand  up  higher,  have  a 
place  in  the  Bible  always;  and  to  others  of  like 
quaUty,  Get  ye  hence,  be  banished  for  ever; 
we  might  be  taxed  perad venture  with  St.  James's 
words,  namely.  To  he  partial  in  ourselves,  and  judges 
of  evil  thoughts.  Add  hereunto,  that  niceness  in 
words  was  always  counted  the  next  step  to  trifling; 
and  so  was  to  be  curious  about  names  too:  also 

^  Both  words  mean  bed. 

^  Cucurbita  means  a  gourd:  hedera  means  ivy.    The  reference 
is  to  the  vine  in  Jonah  iv.  7. 


350  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

that  we  cannot  follow  a  better  pattern  for  elocution 
than  God  himself;  therefore  he  using  divers  words 
in  his  holy  writ,  and  indifferently  for  one  thing 
in  nature;  we,  if  we  will  not  be  superstitious,  may 
use  the  same  liberty  in  our  English  versions  out  of 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  for  that  copy  or  store  that  he 
hath  given  us.  Lastly,  we  have  on  the  one  side 
avoided  the  scrupulosity  of  the  Puritans,  who 
leave  the  old  Ecclesiastical  words,  and  betake 
them  to  other,  as  when  they  put  washing  for  Bap- 
tism, and  Congregation  instead  of  Church :  as  also  on 
the  other  side  we  have  shunned  the  obscurity  of  the 
Papists,  in  their  Azimes,  Tunike,  Rational,  Holo- 
causts, Prcepuce,  Pasche,  and  a  number  of  such  like, 
whereof  their  late  translation  is  full,  and  that  of 
purpose  to  darken  the  sense,  that  since  they  must 
needs  translate  the  Bible,  yet  by  the  language 
thereof  it  may  be  kept  from  being  understood. 
But  we  desire  that  the  Scripture  may  speak  like 
itself,  as  in  the  language  of  Canaan,  that  it  may 
be  understood  even  of  the  very  vulgar. 

This  principle  in  most  cases  had  no  serious  effect. 
It  is  responsible  for  the  difference  between  a  leath- 
ern girdle  in  St.  Matthew's  account  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist and  a  girdle  of  a  skin  in  St.  Marks' s\  between 
eternal  life  in  John  Hi.  15  and  everlasting  life  in  the 
next  verse ;  between  counted  unto  him  for  righteous- 
ness in  one  verse  of  Romans  iv  and  reckoned  to  Abra- 
ham for  righteousness  in  another  verse.  An  ex- 
treme case  is  in  James  ii.  2-3 :  "  For  if  there  come 


THE  TRANSLATION  351 

into  your  assembly  a  man  with  a  gold  ring,  in 
goodly  apparel,  and  there  come  in  also  a  poor  man 
in  vile  raiment;  and  ye  shall  have  respect  to  him 
that  weareth  the  gay  clothing  .  .  ." :  here  apparel, 
raiment,  and  clothing  all  stand  for  a  single  noun  in 
the  Greek.  In  most  cases  such  variations  are  of  prac- 
tically no  importance  so  far  as  accuracy  of  render- 
ing is  concerned.  They  tend  slightly  to  obscure  the 
close  resemblances  in  phrasing  between  corresponding 
parts  of  the  first  three  gospels;  and  in  a  few  cases 
they  may  suggest  a  difference  of  meaning  in  the  Eng- 
lish where  there  is  none  in  the  Greek  or  Hebrew.  On 
the  whole,  however,  though  the  principle  is  departed 
from  in  the  Revised  Version,  and  rightfully  so, 
purely  from  the  point  of  view  of  literature  we  may 
hold  that  the  revisers  of  1611  showed  good  judgment. 
Certainly  this  freedom  in  using  synonyms  must  have 
contributed  to  greater  flexibility  of  rhythm ;  for  there 
are  innumerable  cases  where  one  can  see  that  of  two 
synonyms  one  would  fit  more  smoothly  into  the  sen- 
tence than  the  other;  and  in  an  age  when  there  was 
so  much  feeling  for  euphony  and  expressiveness  of 
style,  such  freedom  of  choice  was  within  its  limits 
an  important  consideration. 

Whether  one  looks  on  this  principle  as  conducing  to 
freedom  or  to  license,  however,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  final  revision  of  1611  was  undertaken  seri- 


352  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

ously  and  according  to  what  were  for  the  time  high 
standards  of  accuracy  and  thoroughness.  The  final 
printing,  as  has  heen  shown  by  Dr.  Scrivener/  was 
hurried  and  careless,  so  much  so  that  the  two  issues 
of  1611  have  distinct  sets  of  errors  in  matters  of 
proof-reading.  The  preparation  of  the  text  for  the 
printers,  on  the  other  hand,  though  uneven  was  on  the 
whole  thorough  and  careful.  The  corrections  of  the 
Revised  Version  bear  testimony  rather  to  the  birth 
of  the  science  of  textual  criticism  and  to  a  great  ad- 
vance in  the  knowledge  of  Hebrew  and  Greek  than 
to  carelessness  or  incompetence  on  the  part  of  the  re- 
visers of  1611.  The  latter  used  all  the  sources  that 
were  open  to  them  with  independence  and  discretion. 
The  substitution  of  the  exquisite  phrase,  a  man  of 
sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief ,^  drawn  from  vir 
dolorum  et  expertus  infirmitatem  of  Pagninus'  Latin 
translation,  for  Jie  is  such  a  man  as  hath  good  experi- 
ence of  sorrows  and  infirmities  of  the  Bishops'  Bible, 
and  a  man  of  sorrows  and  hath  experience  of  infirm- 
ities of  the  Genevan  version,  is  a  strong  example, 
though  not  an  exceptional  one,  of  the  success  of 
their  search  for  the  phrase  which  should  be  most 
expressive  in  English  as  well  as  a  close  representa- 
tive of  the  original.    And  the  fact  that  in  the  climax 

^  F.  H.  A.  Scrivener,  The  Authorised  Edition  of   the  English 
Bible,  1884.  2  iga.  liii.  3. 


THE  TRANSLATION  353 

of  1  Corinthians  xv,  in  the  verse,  0  death,  where  is 
thy  sting,  0  grave,  where  is  thy  victory,  the  0  which 
is  called  for  by  the  vocative  in  the  Greek,  appears  for 
the  first  time  in  their  version,  is  high  testimony  not 
only  to  the  accuracy  of  their  scholarship  but  to  their 
fine  sense  for  the  purely  musical  expressiveness  of 
language.  Such  an  essay  as  this  is  not  the  place 
for  a  detailed  examination  of  the  methods  and  re- 
sults of  the  separate  versions:  whoever  is  interested 
should  consult  the  handbooks  on  the  history  of  the 
English  Bible.  But  the  result  of  such  study  has  been 
to  confirm  the  high  estimate  of  the  labors  of  this  band 
of  scholars.  Their  work  was  done  perhaps  at  the 
latest  time  in  w^iich  it  could  represent  the  hopes  and 
ideas  of  both  the  Puritans  and  the  High  Church 
men ;  and  the  fact  that  the  two  versions  from  which 
they  drew  the  greatest  number  of  their  improvements 
on  the  Bishops'  Bible  were  the  Genevan  Bible  and 
the  Roman  Catholic  Xew  Testament  of  Rheims, 
shows  the  catholicity  of  their  spirit.  All  that  I  shall 
have  to  say  in  the  next  chapter  of  the  excellencies  of 
our  Authorised  Version,  both  as  a  translation  and  as 
a  work  of  literature,  will  be  direct  testimony  to  the 
value  of  this  latest  revision. 

So  much  for  the  history  of  the  English  versions. 
Even  so  brief  a  sketch  as  this  will  have  made  clear 
the  amount  of  painstaking  scholarship  and  the  variety 


354  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

of  sources  from  which  it  drew.  Beginning  with  the 
devoted  and  inspired  labors  of  Tindale,  through  him 
it  drew  on  the  translations  of  Jerome,  of  Erasmus,  of 
Luther,  and  through  Coverdale  and  his  successors,  it 
drew  on  the  Swiss-German  version  of  Ziirich,  on  the 
Latin  translations  of  Pagninus,  of  Miinster,  of  Tre- 
mellius,  of  Leo  Juda,  of  Castalio,  and  of  Theodore 
Beza,  and  on  the  French  translations  of  Lefevre  and 
Olivetan,  and  of  the  "  venerable  company  of  pastors 
at  Geneva,'^  besides  occasional  phrases  from  new 
translations  into  Spanish  and  Italian.  It  gathered 
its  materials  wherever  they  could  be  found,  adopting 
here  a  word  and  there  a  phrase  in  order  to  arrive 
at  the  closest  and  most  expressive  English  within 
their  power.  E^othing  is  more  remarkable  in  the  his- 
tory of  our  English  Bible  than  this  large-minded 
and  eager  search,  to  which  I  shall  presently  recur, 
through  all  the  possible  sources  for  anything  that 
would  help  towards  the  best  translation  into  English ; 
and  we  may  well  suppose  that  this  careful  scrutiny 
of  so  large  a  variety  of  sources,  which  is  not  par- 
alleled in  the  history  of  any  other  Bible,  did  much  to 
give  its  permanence  to  the  work  of  the  translators. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    KING    JAMES   BIBLE 


In  a  final  summing  up  of  the  literary  characteris- 
tics of  the  Authorised  Version  there  are  two  aspects 
in  which  it  must  be  considered.  In  the  first  place  we 
must  make  some  estimate  of  it  as  a  translation  and 
consider  how  far  the  characteristics  of  the  original 
languages  still  color  the  English  work,  and  what  skill 
the  translators  have  showed  in  rendering  the  idiom 
of  one  language  into  that  of  another.  In  the  second 
place  we  must  try  to  define  the  characteristics  of  the 
English  Bible  as  a  work  in  English  literature  apart 
from  its  merits  or  shortcomings  as  a  translation. 

Looking  at  it  first  as  a  translation,  one  must  begin 
by  recognising  that  there  are  two  elements  which  an 
adequate  translation  must  render  into  the  new  lan- 
guage, on  the  one  hand  the  literal  meanings  of  the 
words, — their  exact  denotation, — on  the  other  hand, 
the  feeling  and  emotion  which  suffuses  the  single 
words  and  gives  them  power.  To  render  the  former  is 
a  question  in  part  of  proper  equipment  in  dictionaries 

355 


356  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

and  grammars,  in  part  of  patient  and  enlightened 
industry  in  the  use  of  such  apparatus.  To  render  the 
spirit,  which  is  the  life,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  ques- 
tion of  finding  words  with  apt  connotations,  associa- 
tions, and  implications,  and  of  so  putting  them  to- 
gether as  to  add  the  expressiveness  of  sound  to  the 
style.  For  the  scholarship  and  the  apparatus  of 
scholarship  England  in  the  sixteenth  century  was 
well  equipped  for  the  time.  All  manuscripts  of  the 
Hebrew  are  practically  identical,  and  already  by  the 
sixteenth  century  the  dictionaries  and  grammars  were 
so  good  that  Tindale's  translation  of  the  clearer  parts 
of  the  Old  Testament  stands  with  little  change  to-day. 
The  great  advance  in  scholarship  has  made  possible 
larger  improvements  in  the  other  books  where  the 
original  text  is  more  obscure.  In  the  case  of  the 
New  Testament  the  foundation  work  had  been  laid 
by  Erasmus,  and  his  work  was  continued  by  scholars 
like  Robert  Stephens  and  Beza.  The  science  of  criti- 
cism, however,  was  not  to  be  born  till  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  there  were  many 
questions  of  text  and  preferable  readings  which  it 
was  impossible  for  the  best  scholars  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  solve.  Hence,  as  the  Revised  Version 
makes  clear,  in  details  the  Authorised  Version  needed 
correction. 

On  the  other  hand  the  infusing  of  the  words  of 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  357 

the  translation  with  the  spirit,  which  gave  it  its 
place  as  the  crowning  monument  of  English  litera- 
ture, could  be  better  accomplished  in  the  sixteenth 
century  than  at  any  time  before  or  since  in  English 
history.  In  the  first  place  the  state  of  the  language 
was  at  its  very  best  for  the  purpose.  I  have  pointed 
out  in  the  chapter  on  poetry  that  the  rich  coloring  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  largely  derived  from  the  fact 
that  the  Hebrew  had  no  words  which  had  not  a  physi- 
cal signification,  and  that  they  were  thus  of  necessity 
clothed  with  a  strength  of  feeling  which  can  never 
be  attained  by  abstract  words.  The  English  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  more  fit  to  reproduce  this  char- 
acter of  the  Hebrew  than  it  has  ever  been  again. 
Since  that  time  English  has  been  enriched  chiefly  by 
the  addition  of  abstract  and  general  words,  mostly 
from  the  Latin  and  Greek,  to  express  the  constantly 
enlarging  range  of  scientific  and  philosophical 
thought;  and  we  write  naturally  and  necessarily 
nowadays  in  abstract  terms  from  which  the  figura- 
tive force  has  long  since  faded  out.  No  one  who 
has  read  in  the  writings  of  the  sixteenth  century  can 
fail  to  be  struck  by  the  picturesqueness  which  comes 
from  a  figurativeness  of  language  unlike  anything 
in  our  language  to-day.  Even  in  the  statute  books 
one  finds  such  lively  and  figurative  language  as, 
^^  But  their  vicious  living  shamelessly  increaseth  and 


358  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

augmenteth,  and  by  a  cursed  custom  so  rooted  and 
infected  that  a  great  multitude  of  the  religious  per- 
sons in  such  small  houses  do  rather  choose  to  rove 
abroad  in  apostasy  than  to  conform  themselves  to 
the  true  religion  " ;  ^  or  in  another  statute :  "  With- 
out providing  wherefore  too  great  a  scope  of  unrea- 
sonably liberty  should  be  given  to  all  cankered  and 
traitorous  hearts,  willers,  and  workers  of  the  same."  ^ 
If  such  language  gives  color  to  the  legal  phraseology 
of  the  statute  book,  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  the 
language  of  ordinary  books  full  of  vivid  and  vigorous 
figures  of  speech.  Tindale  himself  in  his  Epistle  to 
the  Reader  promises  a  revision  in  these  words,  "  and 
will  endeavor  ourselves  as  it  were  to  seethe  it  better 
and  to  make  it  more  apt  for  the  weak  stomachs  " ; 
and  in  another  place  he  speaks  of  "  sucking  out  the 
sweet  pith  of  the  Scriptures."  In  the  latter  case  we 
to-day  should  probably  have  written  "  extract  the  es- 
sence " ;  and  thereby  with  what  is  to  us  the  quaint- 
ness  we  should  have  lost  also  the  eagerness  and  de- 
light which  color  Tindale's  words  with  their  halo  of 
feeling.  The  language  of  this  sixteenth  century  was 
lacking  in  many  of  our  commonest  general  words, 
and  as  a  result  men  used  figures  of  speech  more  nat- 
urally. Even  when  we  take  into  account  the  love  of 
picturesque  phrases  which  effervesced  into  the  affec- 
1  27  Henry  VIII,  c.  28.  ^  26  Henry  VIII,  c,  13. 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  359 

tations  of  euphuism  in  the  latter  half  of  the  century 
and  clothed  itself  in  soberer  colors  in  the  style  of 
Thomas  Fuller  a  couple  of  generations  later,  we  must 
still  recognise  that  all  the  men  who  worked  on  our 
English  Bible,  from  Tindale  to  King  James's  com- 
panies of  revisers  in  1611,  must  sometimes  have 
adopted  figurative  forms  of  expression  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  abstract  word  had  not  yet  been  assim- 
ilated in  the  language.  The  same  change  in  the 
character  of  the  everyday  language  shows  in  the 
richer  colors  of  Sir  Thomas  North's  translation  of 
Plutarch  as  compared  with  Langhorne's  or  Clough's, 
or  the  liveliness  of  Shelton's  Do7i  Quixote  and  in 
the  warmth  and  spirit  of  Florio's  translation  of 
Montaigne.  The  difference  lies  in  each  case  in  the 
emotional  richness  of  the  expression:  and  that  goes 
back  directly  to  the  greater  or  less  degree  of  con- 
creteness  in  the  vocabulary. 

There  is  still  another  fact  to  take  into  account 
here.  Along  with  the  enrichment  of  the  language 
through  the  constant  acquisition  of  new  abstract 
words,  and  the  consequent  gain  in  range  and  preci- 
sion of  thought,  there  has  gone  a  considerable  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  words  which  we  use  vaguely 
and  lazily.  Every  general  word  will  for  an  indolent 
thinker  take  the  place  of  several  specific  words: 
move,  for  example,  in  an  abstract  but  vague  way, 


360  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

covers  the  meaning  of  run,  hop,  slide,  roll,  tumble, 
and  a  host  of  other  specific  words.  In  many  cases 
such  abstract  words  are  hardly  more  definite  than 
gestures:  we  use  such  counters  of  speech  as  element, 
relation,  result,  effect,  without  ever  stopping  to  come 
to  close  quarters  with  their  meaning.  For  several 
years  I  have  set  a  class  of  sophomores  to  study  a 
textbook  in  which  elements  of  style,  qualities  of 
style,  and  principles  of  composition  are  used  as 
technical  terms;  and  not  three  students  in  a  hun- 
dred get  them  straight  in  their  minds  on  the  first 
reading.  This  is  no  doubt  an  extreme  case :  but  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  general  careless  use  of  common 
abstract  terms  has  largely  dulled  their  expressiveness. 
Our  modern  use  of  language,  therefore,  tends  not 
only  to  be  less  concrete,  but  also  to  be  vaguer  and 
duller  than  that  of  our  fathers.  This  danger  obvi- 
ously makes  more  difficult  the  task  of  modern  re- 
visers of  the  Bible.  Unless  their  scholarship  is  mated 
to  a  keen  sense  of  the  expressiveness  of  words,  their 
revisions  will  lose  both  in  color  and  in  precision ;  and 
even  where  a  writer  himself  uses  these  commoner  ab- 
stract words  with  entire  precision,  he  cannot  always 
forestall  laziness  of  attention  in  his  readers.  We 
may  conclude,  therefore,  that  in  so  far  as  any  modern 
version  substitutes  abstract  and  general  words  for 
concrete,  that  version  misses  an  essential  and  invalu- 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  361 

able  part  of  the  message  which  the  Bible  has  to  bring 
to  us.  To  use  Tindale's  phrase,  it  substitutes  "the 
imaginations  of  the  brain  "  for  "  those  things  that 
the  conscience  may  feel." 

Besides  the  connotation  of  words  we  must  also 
take  into  account  the  musical  or  sensuous  qualities 
of  style.  This  power  it  is  quite  impossible  to  re- 
duce to  notation  or  to  any  accurate  estimate.  We 
know  that  rhythm  and  a  fit  sequence  of  sounds  do  ex- 
press feeling,  though  why  or  exactly  how  we  cannot 
say.  The  expressive  power  of  rhythm  probably  has 
something  to  do  with  the  alternate  activity  and 
strength  of  the  attention  through  which  we  insensibly 
reduce  all  continuous  regularity  to  alternations.  In 
all  art  it  means  life  and  feeling.  The  expressive 
power  of  the  pure  melody  of  sounds  is  even  less  tan- 
gible :  yet  certain  sounds  serve  to  express  certain  feel- 
ings. Ruskin  in  his  description  of  an  English  cathe- 
dral and  of  St.  Mark's  in  The  Stones  of  Venice  used 
words  in  which  by  actual  count  one  can  note  that 
short  vowels  and  the  clicking  consonants  like  gr,  h,  p, 
and  t  express  coolness  and  austerity,  and  that  the 
open  vowels  and  the  singing  consonants,  7,  //i,  /?,  and 
r  express  luxuriant  feeling.  Why  this  is  so  we  can 
no  more  explain  than  we  can  say  why  the  not«s  of 
the  flute  can  be  made  to  suggest  moonlight.  We  are 
here  dealing  with  ultimate  facts  of  experience.     The 


362  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

fact,  however,  that  such  ultimate  facts  are  inexplic- 
able does  not  make  them  any  less  potent  a  force  in 
literature  and  in  human  intercourse;  and  we  may 
suppose  that  just  as  a  cheerful  frame  of  mind  some- 
times betrays  the  most  sedate  of  men  into  the  hum- 
ming of  strange  and  uncouth  sounds,  so  here  in  the 
case  of  these  noblest  and  most  searching  of  all  emo- 
tions, the  strong  coloring  of  the  sounds  is  at  least  as 
important  a  part  of  the  power  of  expression  as  is  the 
use  of  the  single  words.  Music  is  a  spontaneous  and 
almost  universal  part  of  worship;  and  the  power  of 
language  to  express  religious  feeling  is  inseparably 
bound  up  with  rich  coloring  of  tone  and  strong  beat 
of  rhythm. 

Yet  unless  there  be  sincere  and  intense  feeling  to 
express,  strength  of  rhythm  and  rich  coloring  merely 
imparts  preciosity  and  affectation  to  language.  In  the 
case  of  our  English  translation  we  have  seen  that  the 
translators  and  revisers  were  stirred  to  an  intensity 
of  feeling  on  the  subject  with  which  they  were  deal- 
ing which  has  not  since  been  equalled  in  the  history 
of  England.  The  English  Bible  was  one  of  the  first 
fruits  of  the  English  Reformation,  and  the  history 
of  the  successive  revisions  leading  up  to  the  version 
of  1611  is  largely  a  history  of  the  fluctuations  of 
the  Reformation.  Tindale  gave  up  his  life  for  the 
share  he  had  in  translating  the  Bible  and  in  advan- 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  363 

cing  the  Reformation;  John  Rogers,  the  editor  of 
Matthew's  Bible  of  1537,  was  the  first  martyr  under 
the  persecution  of  Mary;  the  Geneva  version  was 
made  by  exiles  from  England  during  the  same  perse- 
cution, men  who  belonged  to  a  party  for  whom  the  re- 
ligion of  their  special  sect  was  the  one  dominant  rule 
of  life;  and  the  version  of  1611  was  made  at  the 
beginning  of  James's  reign  amidst  all  the  intensity 
of  feeling  aroused  by  the  Gunpowder  Plot  and  the 
attempts  of  the  Roman  Catholics  on  the  one  hand 
to  reestablish  themselves,  and  of  the  Puritans  on  the 
other  to  assert  the  domination  of  their  peculiar  doc- 
trines. Throughout  the  three  generations  in  which 
the  Authorised  Version  was  growing  to  completion 
religious  belief  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  And 
through  a  large  part  of  that  period  men  were  suffer- 
ing death  and  torture  even  in  England  for  beliefs 
which  ultimately  rested  on  the  language  of  the  Bible. 
This  intensity  of  feeling  is  reflected  in  the  vigorous 
rhythm  and  strong  coloring  of  our  English  Bible. 
The  weakness  of  all  modern  translations,  in  spite  of 
their  many  advantages  in  the  way  of  scholarship,  is 
that  they  lack  this  intensity  of  feeling  which  is  the  life 
of  the  Authorised  Version.  Men  in  our  piping  times 
of  peace  cannot  have,  and  therefore  cannot  impart, 
the  same  burning  earnestness  which  belonged  to  all 
matters  of  religion  in  the  sixteenth  century. 


364  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

II 

Going  now  beyond  the  qualities  of  sixteenth  cen- 
tury English,  we  can  ascribe  much  of  the  striking 
picturesqueness  of  phrase  which  especially  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  in  the  first  three  gospels  gives  the  lan- 
guage its  vividness  to  the  characteristic  concreteness 
of  the  Hebrew  language.  We  have  seen  that  in  He- 
brew every  word  retains  the  physical  connotation  of 
the  original,  so  that  their  language  had  no  such  ab- 
stract words  as  principle,  relation,  contents,  explicit, 
from  which  the  force  of  the  original  figure  of  speech 
is  wholly  evaporated.  In  consequence  Hebrew  is  a 
language  full  of  bold  figures.  The  margin  of  the 
Authorised  Version  preserves  a  few  examples  of  fig- 
ures which  the  translators  thought  too  bold  for  the 
text.  In  Genesis  xxxvii.  36  the  literal  rendering  for 
captain  of  the  guard  is  given  in  the  margin  as  the 
chief  of  the  slaughter-men.  In  Judges  xix.  8  the 
margin  gives  till  the  day  declined,  for  until  afternoon ; 
and  in  verse  9  for  the  day  groweth  to  an  end,  it  is  the 
pitching  time  of  day ;  in  other  places  wringer  for 
extortioner',  treaders  down  for  oppressors;  the  fields 
of  desire  for  the  pleasant  fields;  with  one  shoulder 
for  with  one  consent.  These  are  only  a  few  extreme 
examples  of  the  boldness  of  figure  which  has  given 
many  familiar  phrases  to  our  everyday  language: 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  365 

the  fat  of  the  land,  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death y 
the  end  of  all  fleshy  seed  of  evildoers^  a  soft  answer ^ 
son  of  perdition,  all  are  examples  of  the  necessary 
and  characteristic  figurativeness  of  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage. It  is  hard  to  estimate  the  influence  of  such 
figures  on  our  everyday  English  speech,  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  has  helped  to  keep  alive  a  certain 
picturesqueness  and  vividness  of  phrase  which  one 
finds  in  the  great  masters  of  English  style. 

This  picturesqueness  of  the  Hebrew  fitted  in  well 
with  constant  figurativeness  of  English  in  the  six- 
teenth century  of  which  I  have  just  spoken.  In  the 
short  passage  from  the  address  of  the  Translators  to 
the  Reader  which  I  quoted  a  few  pages  back  there  are 
such  picturesque  phrases  as  neither  did  we  run  over 
the  work  with  that  posting  haste,  the  work  hath  not 
been  huddled  up  in  seventy  two  days,  hring  bach  to 
the  anvil  that  which  we  had  hammered ;  and  the  whole 
address  is  marked  by  this  simple  quaintness  of  style. 
One  must  take  into  account  that  the  author  of  this  ad- 
dress had  grown  up  in  the  days  of  euphuism  and  must 
remember  also  that  deliberate  picturesqueness  of  lan- 
guage which  characterised  Thomas  Fuller  in  the  next 
generation;  but  apart  from  any  such  external  influ- 
ences making  for  picturesqueness,  we  must  recognise 
also  that  the  English  langiiage  of  the  sixteenth  century 
had  more  figures  of  speech  and  fewer  abstract  words 


366  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

than  our  language  of  to-day.     In  this  respect  also  it 
was  considerably  nearer  to  the  Hebrew. 

This  natural  picturesqueness  of  language  which 
goes  back  to  the  special  characteristics  of  the  Hebrew 
and  of  sixteenth  century  English,  is  undoubtedly 
somewhat  heightened  for  us  by  the  fact  that  in  some 
small  degree  the  language  of  the  Authorised  Version 
is  now  archaic.  Apart  from  such  forms  as  saith 
and  prayeth  there  are  a  good  many  words  which, 
though  still  entirely  intelligible,  are  no  longer  used  in 
the  way  that  they  were  used  three  centuries  ago. 
Meat  no  longer  means  food ;  we  no  longer  use  naughty 
in  the  sense  of  Jeremiah  xxiv.  2,  "  the  other  basket 
had  very  naughty  figs,  which  could  not  be  eaten,  they 
were  so  bad  " ;  prevent  no  longer  means  to  go  before 
nor  expect  merely  waiting ;  wist  for  knew  has  passed 
out  of  usage ;  and  many  other  forms  to  a  less  degree 
have  dropped  out  of  current  speech.  Very  few  of 
these  words  are  actually  unintelligible,  but  the  forms 
are  unfamiliar  enough  to  add  a  certain  coloring  of 
quaintness  and  remoteness  to  the  language  of  the 
Bible,  so  that  it  stands  apart  from  all  other  works 
which  are  current  with  us  to-day  by  this  difference 
in  the  character  of  its  vocabulary.  Part  of  its  lit- 
erary character  is  undoubtedly  to  be  ascribed  to  this 
slight  flavor  of  another  world  which  clings  to  its 
words. 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  367 

It  should  always  be  remembered,  however,  that  the 
concreteness  and  figurative  character  of  the  Bible 
vocabulary  have  contributed  to  maintain  the  appeal 
of  the  Bible  not  because  of  their  picturesqueness  but 
because  such  a  mode  of  expression  is  the  only  way  in 
which  many  of  the  deepest  and  noblest  emotions  can 
be  expressed.  I  have  explained  at  length  in  the  chap- 
ter on  the  poetry  how  inseparably  the  expression  of 
the  emotions  depends  on  concreteness  of  phrasing.  It 
is  a  chief  source  of  strength  in  our  Authorised  Ver- 
sion that  it  has  carried  over  into  the  English  the  con- 
creteness of  this  unfailingly  apt  imagery  and  its 
power  to  express  spiritual  truths.  The  book  deals 
with  truths  which  lie  in  a  region  deeper  and  more  uni- 
versal than  can  be  fathomed  by  human  reason,  and 
which  can  be  expressed  only  by  expressing  the  sensa- 
tions which  stir  up  such  emotions ;  and  the  fact  that 
the  sixteenth  century  English  was  comparatively  so 
much  poorer  in  words  of  abstraction,  and  therefore 
comparatively  so  much  richer  in  words  which  directly 
expressed  emotion,  made  that  period  the  fittest  time 
for  the  translation. 

Along  with  this  unfailing  concreteness  and  figura- 
tive character  of  the  language  goes  its  entire  simplic- 
ity: of  all  the  books  in  the  language  it  is  the  one 
which  can  be  read  with  profit  and  comfort  by  people 
of  all  degrees  of  intelligence  and  education.     The 


368  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

original  books,  being  written  either  in  the  Hebrew 
language  which  had  no  expression  for  anything  but 
objective  facts,  or  else  in  Greek  which  was  addressed 
to  a  church  where  the  learned  were  a  small  minor- 
ity, were  simple  in  vocabulary  and  expression.  Tin- 
dale,  taking  his  inspiration  probably  from  Colet 
and  Erasmus,  maintained  this  simplicity  in  his  own 
translation  and  established  it  as  a  principle  for  his 
successors.  The  Bible  was  translated  with  the  pur- 
pose of  bringing  the  gospel  back  to  the  plain  people 
of  England.  This  principle,  joined  to  the  fact  that 
the  English  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  not  yet  been 
enriched  by  the  great  mass  of  learned  words  from 
the  Latin,  has  made  the  vocabulary  of  the  English 
Bible  very  different  from  the  ordinary  vocabulary 
of  our  own  day.  A  concordance  shows  in  a  very 
striking  way  how  little  need  the  translators  of  the 
Bible  had  for  the  Latinate  words.  Among  words 
which  appear  only  once  in  the  Bible  are  such  com- 
mon words  as  the  following:  amiable^  commodi- 
ous, conquer,  constraint,  debase,  discipline,  disgrace, 
enable,  intelligence,  modest,  quantity,  reformation, 
severity,  transferred.  All  these  words,  and  they  are 
a  small  part  of  the  complete  list,  are  among  the  most 
familiar  in  our  everyday  vocabulary. 

It  is  probable  that  this  principle  of  keeping  ink- 
horn  terms  out  of  the  Bible  was  strengthened  by  the 


THE  KING  JAMES   BIBLE  369 

contention  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  as  de- 
clared bj  the  Council  of  Trent,  that  the  Vulgate  was 
the  only  authentic  text  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the 
complementary  principle  that  the  Scriptures  could  be 
understood  only  by  the  initiate.  This  principle  is 
set  forth  in  the  preface  to  the  Ehemish  ^ew  Testa- 
ment in  the  following  words :  "  Whereupon,  the  order 
which  many  a  wise  man  wished  for  before,  was  taken 
by  the  deputies  of  the  late  famous  Council  of  Trent 
in  this  behalf,  and  confirmed  by  supreme  authority, 
that  the  Holy  Scriptures,  though  truly  and  catholicly 
translated  into  the  vulgar  tongues,  yet  may  not  be  in- 
differently read  of  all  men,  nor  any  other  except  such 
as  have  the  express  license  thereunto  of  their  lawful 
ordinaries,  with  good  testimony  from  their  curates  or 
confessors,  that  they  be  humble,  discreet  and  devout 
persons,  and  like  to  take  much  good,  and  no  harm 
thereby."  We  have  seen  that  the  revisers  of  1611 
were  deeply  affected  by  the  efforts  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  to  recover  England  to  the  old  faith, 
and  it  seems  clear  from  the  address  of  the  Trans- 
lators to  the  Readers  in  the  Authorised  Version  that 
these  revisers  somewhat  overestimated  the  impor- 
tance of  the  Roman  Catholic  efforts.  Men  who  are 
much  given  to  finding  reasons  for  their  actions  are 
apt  to  lag  behind  events.  But  in  their  reaction 
from  this   principle   of  the   old  church  they  were 


370  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

strengthened  in  their  intention  to  keep  the  Scriptures 
in  a  language  which  could  be  understood  by  all  men. 
Though  there  is  a  slightly  greater  infusion  of  Latin- 
ate  and  learned  words  in  the  Authorised  Version 
than  in  any  previous  version  except  the  Rhemish 
'New  Testament,  yet  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  since 
the  time  of  Tindale  there  had  been  three-quarters  of 
a  century  of  animated  and  widespread  theological 
discussion,  so  that  some  of  the  Latinate  words  which 
would  have  been  unfamiliar  to  the  men  of  his  day 
would  have  been  generally  known  in  the  time  of  King 
James. 

A  comparison  of  the  Bible  with  almost  any  other 
work  in  the  English  language  will  bring  out  this  pre- 
vailingly simple  character  of  its  vocabulary.  Since 
the  concrete  things  of  sensation  in  which  it  is  so 
largely  phrased  are  generally  expressed  in  English 
by  words  derived  ultimately  from  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
the  language  of  the  Bible  is  far  less  Latinate  than 
any  other  work  in  English.  Even  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress seems  learned  in  its  vocabulary  by  the  side  of 
the  Bible.  The  influence  of  this  fact  in  keeping  the 
general  style  of  English  simple  cannot  be  overesti- 
mated. The  fashion  of  style  which  we  generally 
think  of  as  Johnsonian  is  far  removed  from  the  vo- 
cabulary of  the  English  Bible,  but  this  very  remote- 
ness marks  its  weakness  and  made  certain  the  reac- 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  371 

tion  which  was  sure  to-come  to  a  simpler  mode  of 
speech ;  and  the  ideals  of  style  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury stand  much  nearer  to  the  standard  set  by  the 
Bible  than  did  those  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Yet  in  spite  of  this  comparative  narrowness  in  the 
range  of  its  vocabulary,  the  aptness  and  flexibility 
of  the  style  are  extraordinary.  The  revisers  of  1611 
had  a  very  great  stock  of  readings  from  which  to 
draw,  not  only  in  English  but  in  Latin,  German, 
French,  and  even  in  Italian  and  Spanish.  Tindale 
had  set  the  example  of  using  what  aids  existed  in 
his  time :  he  drew  with  independence  and  instinctive 
sense  of  style  from  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate,  the 
Latin  of  Erasmus,  and  the  German  of  Luther;  and 
we  have  seen  how  faithfully  later  translators  and  re- 
visers followed  his  example.  Every  familiar  phrase 
in  the  Bible  can  be  traced  to  its  source,  sometimes  in 
the  inspired  instinct  of  one  or  another  of  these  Eng- 
lish translators  or  revisers,  sometimes  in  one  of  the 
foreign  translations  which  they  used.  In  Isaiah 
liii.  5,  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  comes  directly 
from  the  castigatio  pads  nostjw  of  Miinster's  Latin 
translation :  the  curious  rendering  in  J  oh  xix.  26,  and 
though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this  body  goes 
back  to  the  et  post  pellem  meam  contritam  vermes 
contriverunt  hanc  carnem  of  Pagninus ;  and  we  have 
seen  how  freely  the  valuable  results  of  the  Khemish 


372  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Version  were  appropriated.  A  study  of  the  constant 
little  changes  in  the  choice  and  order  of  words  all 
through  the  versions  of  the  sixteenth  century  makes 
one  realise  what  an  immense  amount  of  devoted 
scholarship,  and  of  weighing  words  and  phrases  with 
a  delicate  ear  for  their  full  expressiveness  went  into 
the  making  of  our  English  Bible.  Every  chapter  of 
it  witnesses  to  the  long  and  anxious  care  for  both  ac- 
curacy and  expressiveness  of  rendering. 

With  this  free  use  of  the  labors  of  this  great  com- 
pany of  translators,  whether  English  or  foreign,  the 
English  translation  shows  extraordinary  resource  in 
dealing  with  the  idioms  of  the  original  literature,  es- 
pecially of  the  Hebrew.  The  best  example  of  this 
swift  instinct  for  finding  an  English  idiom  which 
would  come  nearest  to  some  wholly  foreign  one  is 
shown  in  their  rendering  of  a  characteristic  Hebrew 
construction.  One  mode  of  expressing  emphasis  in 
Hebrew  is  to  repeat  the  infinitive  of  the  verb  with 
some  finite  form,  as  if  we  should  say  in  English 
"  to  see  I  saw."  This  construction,  which  may  be 
used  with  any  verb,  is  rendered  in  the  Authorised 
Version  in  the  greatest  variety  of  ways :  We  saw  cer- 
tainly that  the  Lord  was  with  thee;  I  have  surely 
seen;  Ye  shall  not  surely  die;  0  that  my  grief  were 
throughly  weighed;  If  thou  altogether  holdest  thy 
peace;  The  earth  shall  reel  to  and  fro;  He  shall 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  373 

mightily  roar;  I  do  earnestly  remember.  In  Isaiah 
xxiv.  19  the  translators  find  three  different  English 
idioms  for  this  construction:  The  earth  is  utterly 
broken  down,  the  earth  is  clean  dissolved,  the  earth 
is  moved  exceedingly.  In  each  of  these  cases,  it  will 
be  remembered,  the  Hebrew  is  merely  a  repetition  of 
the  breah  or  dissolve  or  move  in  the  infinitive  with 
the  finite  form  of  the  ^erb.  Another  Hebrew  idiom 
is  the  repetition  of  a  noun  or  a  numeral.  Here  again 
they  find  excellent  English  renderings.  Two-two  in 
the  story  of  Xoah  is  rendered  by  two  and  two ;  in  the 
description  of  the  cherubim  six  wings  six  wings  is  ren- 
dered each  had  six  wings.  A  heart  and  a  heart  is 
rendered  a  double  heart ;  peace  peace  is  rendered  per- 
fect peace.  In  the  story  of  the  solemn  anointing  of 
Saul  by  Samuel,  where  the  people  shouted  according 
to  the  Hebrew,  Let  the  Mng  live,  our  Bible  boldly 
substituted  the  English  cry,  God  save  the  Mng.  In 
Ezelciel  xxx.  2,  where  the  literal  translation  would 
be.  Howl  ye,  woe  to  the  day,  it  translates  Howl  ye, 
woe  worth  the  day.  The  phrase  God  forbid,  which 
is  so  familiar  in  St.  Paul's  epistles,  especially  in 
Romans,  is  a  rendering  of  a  Greek  construction 
which  means  literally  may  it  not  be.  In  the  Old 
Testament  God  forbid  is  used  for  a  word  which 
means  originally  unconsecrated  or  profane  or  abhor- 
rent) the   Septuagint  uses  for  it  the   same   Greek 


374  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

phrase  which  is  translated  in  the  !N'ew  Testament 
God  forbid.  The  rendering  of  this  Hebrew  word  in 
the  English  appears  in  various  forms ;  in  the  story  of 
Joseph's  brethren,  it  is  God  forbid  that  thy  servants 
should  do  according  to  this  thing.  Where  Abra- 
ham expostulates  with  the  Lord  against  the  destruc- 
tion of  Sodom,  it  is  That  he  far  from  thee  to  do 
after  this  manner.  Where  David  spares  Saul,  it  is 
The  Lord  forbid  that  I  should  do  this  thing  unto 
my  master.  This  comparative  freedom  from  scruples 
about  a  literal  and  uniform  rendering  of  the  words 
of  the  original  unquestionably  made  it  possible  for 
the  translation  to  have  a  spirit  and  vigor  impossible 
to  scholars  who  are  oppressed  by  a  greater  burden 
of  learning.  The  chief  principle  of  all  translators 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  seems  to 
have  been  to  produce  in  lively  and  vigorous  Eng- 
lish the  spirit  of  the  original  language.  In  some 
cases  the  literalness  of  their  rendering  suffered;  but 
they  produced  translations  which  are  independent 
contributions  to  literature^  where  modern  translators 
give  us  works  which  are  at  best  an  imperfect  means 
of  getting  at  the  meanings  of  the  originals. 

An  even  deeper  source  of  power  than  this  aptness 
in  fitting  the  English  idiom  to  that  of  the  Hebrew  or 
the  Greek  and  giving  a  new  and  richer  life  to  the 
rendering  is  the  strong  rhythm  and  the  rich  music 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  375 

of  the  style,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken  so  often. 
In  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament  the  rhythm  may 
be  largely  ascribed  to  the  character  of  the  Hebrew 
language.  We  have  seen  that  in  poetry  the  principle 
of  parallelism  established  a  strongly  marked  balance : 
in  the  case  of  the  prose  the  balance  is  nearly  as  per- 
vasive from  the  fact  that  sentences  in  Hebrew  varied 
little  in  length;  except  in  Deuteronomy  they  rarely 
go  beyond  a  single  clause,  and  in  the  narrative  they 
are  constantly  of  about  the  same  length.  Indeed,  if 
they  were  printed  in  broken  lines,  as  is  the  poetry  in 
the  Kevised  Version,  the  effect  would  be  not  far  from 
the  same.  As  a  result  of  this  regularity  of  balance 
the  rhythm  of  the  narrative  passages  is  almost  as 
strong  as  that  of  the  poetry.  Thus  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels almost  any  translation  would  be  more  rhythmical 
than  ordinary  English  prose  of  to-day.  Another 
cause,  as  we  have  seen,  reinforced  this  probability  of 
a  strong  rhythm  and  gave  it  vitality.  In  part  at  any 
rate  it  reflects  and  expresses  the  intensity  of  feeling 
which  accompanied  all  questions  of  religion  in  six- 
teenth century  England.  All  through  the  period 
which  saw  the  formation  of  our  English  Bible  feel- 
ings on  the  subject  of  the  lawfulness  and  the  necessity 
of  a  translation  were  at  fever  heat.  Adherence  to 
one  side  or  the  other  might  be  a  matter  of  life  or 


376  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

death.  Nowadays  scholars  work  at  their  translations 
in  quiet  and  peace,  walled  in  by  their  great  apparatus 
of  scholarship  from  the  concerns  of  the  world  about 
them :  in  those  days  men  undertook  to  prove  the  law- 
fulness and  righteousness  of  the  government  of  Eng- 
land by  the  quotation  of  texts  of  Scripture.  Thus  es- 
pecially to  men  of  the  Puritan  way  of  thinking  the 
turn  of  every  phrase  in  the  Bible  was  a  matter  not 
only  of  the  larger  doctrines  of  the  faith  but  also 
of  immediate  concern  in  this  world's  affairs.  To 
some  degree  at  any  rate  this  earnestness  wrought  it- 
self into  the  texture  of  our  English  Bible,  expressing 
itself,  as  such  feelings  must,  largely  in  a  quickened 
and  richer  sound. 

Ill 

Before  coming  to  an  end,  let  us  consider  very 
briefly  the  character  and  place  of  the  Bible  in  the 
great  body  of  English  literature  and  its  contribution 
to  that  literature.  Here  again  we  must  assume  the 
fact  of  inspiration  without  attempting  to  define  it  or 
to  draw  a  line  between  what  is  called  literary  in- 
spiration and  the  higher  and  deeper  inspiration  which 
creates  a  religion.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the 
two  run  into  each  other,  and  also  that  both  are  active 
in  a  region  of  the  nature  of  man  where  there  is  little 
probability  that  he  will  ever  have  any  accurate  knowl- 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  377 

edge.  We  are  driven  by  the  existence  of  literature  no 
less  than  by  the  existence  of  religion  to  acknowledge 
that  there  are  forces  inscrutable  to  us  in  our  present 
state  of  knowledge  which  are  instructive,  potent,  and 
constant  in  their  influence  on  human  life  and  action. 
When  we  have  said  that  there  are  certain  forms  of 
speech  and  of  writing  which  move  men's  imaginations 
and  stir  their  souls,  we  have  expressed  the  fact  of  in- 
spiration and  have  gone  nearly  as  far  as  it  is  possible 
to  go  in  analyzing  it. 

'Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  above  all  other 
books  in  English  the  Bible  has  this  power  of  stirring 
the  imagination  and  moving  the  soul.  Moreover,  it 
has  this  power  almost  apart  from  religious  belief: 
men  who  belong  to  no  church,  and  who  profess  no 
religious  belief,  go  to  it  ^vith  the  same  certainty  of 
being  stimulated  and  uplifted  as  do  members  of 
Christian  churches ;  and  it  is  not  the  disagreement  of 
the  churches  as  to  its  meaning  w^hich  has  led  them  to 
less  dependence  on  its  teachings.  The  power  of  the 
book  to  stir  the  imagination  to  a  sense  of  realities 
which  are  on  a  higher  plane  than  the  affairs  of  every- 
day life  is  not  limited  to  its  use  as  a  source  of  relig- 
ious belief. 

Yet  this  most  native  of  all  books  is  by  origin 
wholly  foreign,  and  in  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament 
it  is  as  foreign  as  anything  can  be.     The  stories  of 


378  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Genesis,  Exodus,  and  Numbers  were  first  gathered  at 
the  little  local  shrines  of  Palestine  at  a  time  when 
the  children  of  Israel  were  just  shedding  their  wild 
nomadic  habits;  and  the  stories  of  Judges  with  the 
glimpses  they  give  ns  of  bloody  raids  and  tribal 
feuds, — Gideon  "  teaching  '^  the  men  of  Succoth 
with  thorns  of  the  wilderness  and  briars  and  with  his 
own  hand  slaying  Zebah  and  Zalmunna,  the  lawless 
foray  of  Dan,  the  sacrifice  of  Jephthah, — show  how 
little  the  settling  down  tamed  their  wild  and  bloody 
temper.  Even  the  histories  of  Kings, — of  David 
hewing  out  his  kingdom  with  the  help  of  the  bloody 
Joab,  of  Solomon  putting  his  brother  Adonijah  to 
the  sword,  or  of  the  remorseless  extirpation  of  the 
worshippers  of  Baal  by  Jehu  under  the  direction  of 
the  prophet  Elisha, — all  such  stories  reflect  a  state 
of  civilisation  which  we  look  on  as  wholly  Asiatic. 
Even  in  the  case  of  the  New  Testament  the  surround- 
ings were  not  much  less  foreign.  The  Synoptic 
Gospels  and  Revelation  sprang  from  a  life  which 
had  not  much  more  than  a  veneer  of  Roman  civilisa- 
tion. The  first  disciples  were  Syrian  peasants  and 
fishermen,  of  a  people  whose  descendants  to-day  seem 
almost  unassimilable  to  us.  St.  Paul  was  a  man  of 
education,  but  of  an  education  which  probably  had 
little  tincture  of  the  Greek  and  Latin. 

After  all,  however,  one  can  feel  the  foreignness  of 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  379 

the  Bible  best  by  putting  it  alongside  other  works  of 
English  literature,  and  noting  how  in  almost  every 
way,  it  seems  to  contrast  with  them.  Milton  has  used 
the  story  of  Samson  in  his  Samson  Agonistes,  treat- 
ing it  in  the  manner  of  a  Greek  tragedy.  But  Sam- 
son Agonistes  beside  the  original  story  seems  like  a 
stage-play:  for  all  Milton's  grim  austerity  and  ear- 
nestness his  poem  is  artificial.  Samson  becomes  an 
introspective,  seventeenth  century  Puritan,  instead  of 
the  hearty,  inconstant  giant  who  in  the  ancient  cycle 
of  stories  played  his  rough  jokes  on  the  Philistines. 
Here  is  the  way  Milton  conceives  him: 

UnwilUngly  this  rest 
Their  superstition  yields  me;  hence  with  leave 
Retiring  from  the  popular  noise,  I  seek 
This  unfrequented  place  to  find  some  ease; 
Ease  to  the  body  some,  none  to  the  mind 
From  restless  thoughts,  that,  like  a  deadly  swarm 
Of  hornets  arm'd,  no  sooner  found  alone 
But  rush  upon  me  thronging,  and  present 
Times  past,  what  once  I  was,  and  what  am  now. 

But  what  is  strength  without  a  double  share 

Of  wisdom?  vast,  unwieldly,  burdensome, 

Proudly  secure,  yet  liable  to  fall 

By  weakest  subtleties;  not  made  to  rule, 

But  to  subserve  where  wisdom  bears  command. 

God,  when  he  gave  me  strength,  to  show  withal 

How  slight  the  gift  was,  hung  it  in  my  hair. 


380  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Even  apart  from  the  frank  anachronism  of  the  char- 
acterising, and  the  substitution  of  Milton  himself  for 
Samson,  the  whole  conception  seems  almost  sophisti- 
cated beside  the  simple  directness  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Milton,  the  man  of  our  own  race,  must  imag- 
ine motives  and  thoughts  and  feelings  in  an  elaborate 
structure  between  the  events  and  the  mind  of  the 
reader :  the  Israelite  story-teller  left  the  facts  to  speak 
for  themselves,  as  thej  have  for  all  the  centuries 
since.  The  quiet  self-confidence  of  this  method  makes 
modern  story  telling,  even  in  the  restrained  mechan- 
ism of  the  Greek  drama,  seem  to  labor  and  strive  for 
justification. 

I  have  already  in  the  chapter  on  the  narrative 
used  Browning^s  Saul  for  purposes  of  contrast. 
It  is  so  good  an  example  of  almost  everything 
that  the  Bible  is  not  that  I  will  venture  to  quote  a 
few  more  lines  from  it  in  order  to  put  them  beside  a 
passage  from  the  climax  of  Job: 

See  the  king — I  would  help  him  but  cannot,  the 

wishes  fall  through, 
Could  I  wrestle  to  raise  him  from  sorrow,  grow 

poor  to  enrich, 
To  fill  up  his  life,  starve  my  own  out,  I  would — 

knowing  which, 
I  know  that  my  service  is  perfect. — Oh,  speak 

through  me  now! 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  381 

Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love?     So  wouldst 

thou — so  wilt  thou! 
So  shall  crown  thee  the  topmost,  ineffablest, 

uttermost  crown — 
And  thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave 

up  nor  down 
One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in!     It  is 

by  no  breath, 
Turn  of  eye,  wave  of  hand,  that  salvation  joins 

issue  with  death! 
As  thy  Love  is  discovered  almighty,  almighty 

be  proved 
Thy  power,  that  exists  with  and  for  it,  of  being 

Beloved ! 

After  that  read  the  following: 

Canst  thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades, 
or  loose  the  bands  of  Orion? 

Canst  thou  bring  forth  Mazzaroth  in  his  season? 
or  canst  thou  guide  Arcturus  with  his  sons? 

Knowest  thou  the  ordinances  of  heaven?  canst 
thou  set  the  dominion  thereof  in  the  earth? 

Canst  thou  lift  up  thy  voice  to  the  clouds,  that 
abundance  of  waters  may  cover  thee? 

Canst  thou  send  lightnings  that  they  may  go, 
and  say  unto  thee.  Here  we  are?^ 

Beside  Browning's  straining  for  superlatives  and  his 
dancing  whirlwind  of  words  the  grave,  austere  re- 
straint of  the  East  soars  quietly  to  its  portrayal  of 
» Job  xxxviii.  31-35. 


382  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

omnipotence.  There  is  no  effort  in  the  prophets  or 
in  Joh  or  the  Psalms.  The  expression  of  emotion  is 
often  violent  and  overwrought;  yet  it  has  always  at 
the  same  time  a  certain  repose  which  comes  from  the 
effect  of  reserve  power,  and  from  the  sense  that  the 
poet  is  not  struggling  with  forces  which  are  too 
mighty  for  him.  This  combination  of  extreme  and 
excited  intensity  of  emotion  with  a  general  gravity 
and  soberness  of  tone  is  peculiarly  Oriental. 

Again,  if  one  tries  to  imagine  a  play  by  Shakspere 
on  a  Biblical  subject  one  will  understand  how  en- 
tirely he  belonged  to  the  Eenaissance,  and  how  en- 
tirely the  Renaissance  was  absorbed  with  the  life  of 
man  and  of  this  world.  The  mere  fact  that  in  such 
a  play  David  and  Solomon,  or  Jacob  and  Laban, 
would  have  appeared  in  a  doublet  and  hose  empha- 
sizes the  great  gulf  between  Shakspere  and  this 
ancient  literature.  His  interest  would  have  been  in 
the  characters  of  the  play,  in  their  humanity,  in 
the  tangled  web  of  their  fate,  and  in  the  tragedies 
wrought  by  their  weaknesses  and  their  conflicting  de- 
sires. It  is  only  in  the  most  shadowy  way  that  the 
great  forces  which  dominate  Joh  and  the  Psalms  and 
St.  Paul's  epistles  and  Revelation  come  into  his  pages. 
And  when  one  puts  even  his  greatest  plays  beside 
these  books  of  the  Bible  one  finds  the  modern  writing 
almost  trivial  and  ephemeral  beside  the  old.     Much 


THE   KING  JAMES  BIBLE  383 

reading  in  the  Bible  will  soon  bring  one  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  mood  in  which  all  art  seems  a  juggling 
with  trifles,  and  an  attempt  to  catch  the  unessential 
when  the  everlasting  verities  are  slipping  by.  The 
silent,  unhurrving  rumination  of  the  East  makes  our 
modern  flood  of  literature  seem  garrulous  and  chatter- 
ing :  even  the  great  literature  of  the  Greeks  loses  beside 
the  compression  and  massiveness  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. It  is  this  cool  solidity  of  poise,  this  grave  and 
weighty  compression  of  speech,  that  makes  the  Old 
Testament  literature  so  foreign.  It  has  no  pride  of 
art,  no  interest  in  the  subjective  impressions  of  the 
writer,  no  care  even  for  the  preservation  of  his  name. 
It  is  austerely  preoccupied  with  the  lasting  and  the 
real,  and  above  all,  unceasingly  possessed  with  the 
sense  of  the  immediate  presence  of  a  God  who  is 
omnipotent  and  inscrutable.  This  constant  preoccu- 
pation with  the  eternal  and  the  superhuman  gives 
to  this  literature  a  sense  of  proportion  which  again 
separates  it  from  other  literature.  Beside  the  will 
of  the  Almighty  the  joys  and  griefs  and  ambitions  of 
any  single  writer  are  a  vanity  of  vanities,  a  vexa- 
tion of  spirit,  or  as  the  Hebrew  is  more  closely  trans- 
lated in  the  Revised  Version,  "  a  striving  after  wind." 
It  is  as  if,  in  the  words  of  the  marginal  reading  of 
Ecclesiastes  Hi,  God  had  "  set  eternity  in  their 
heart."     In  our  modern  literature  it  is  hardly  pos- 


384  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

sible  to  find  an  author  who  has  not  some  touch  of  the 
restless  egotism  that  is  the  curse  of  the  artistic  tem- 
perament: in  the  Bible  there  is  no  author  who  was 
not  free  from  it. 

In  this  art  which  is  not  art^  then,  in  this  absorp- 
tion with  the  solid  facts  of  reality  and  the  neglect  of 
man's  comment  and  interpretation,  in  the  unswerv- 
ing instinct  for  the  lasting,  and  the  sense  of  the  con- 
stant and  immediate  presence  of  an  omnipotent  God, 
the  Bible  stands  apart  in  our  literature. 

Yet  on  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  is  of  all  books 
the  most  thoroughly  woven  into  the  thought  and 
language  of  English-speaking  people.  There  is  no 
other  book  of  which  it  can  be  said  that  for  many  gen- 
erations all  classes  of  the  people  were  equally  famil- 
iar with  it.  Moreover,  this  familiarity  was  at  its 
greatest  when  the  language  was  taking  on  its  perma- 
nent forms :  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
largely  settled  the  character  of  the  English  tongue; 
and  it  was  in  those  centuries  that  the  Bible  was  the 
household  book.  To  the  simple  and  uneducated  its 
messages  and  stories  are  as  intelligible  and  as  up- 
lifting as  to  the  most  highly  educated;  indeed  it  is 
only  when  cultivation  luxuriates  into  sophistication 
and  decadence  that  the  Bible  loses  its  hold  on  the  im- 
agination. Bunyan  and  Euskin,  at  the  two  extremes 
both  in  time  and  in  position  in  life,  show  the  univer- 


THE  KING  JAMES   BIBLE  385 

sal  power  of  the  book.  Bunyan,  taking  it  in  the  ut- 
most literalness,  found  in  every  exigency  of  his  self- 
torturings  comfort  or  despair  in  the  texts  which 
flashed  in  on  him.  In  the  Grace  Abounding  I  open 
at  random,  and  find  such  passages  as  these: 

But  when  I  had  been  long  vexed  with  this  fear, 
and  was  scarce  able  to  take  one  step  more,  just 
about  the  place  where  I  received  my  other  en- 
couragement, these  words  broke  in  on  my  mind: 
"Compel  them  to  come  in,  that  my  house  may  be 
filled;  and  yet  there  is  room."    (Luke  xiv.  22,  23.) 

I  should  often  also  think  on  Nebuchadnezzar, 
of  whom  'tis  said,  "  He  had  given  him  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth."  (Dan.  v.  18,  19.)  Yet, 
thought  I,  if  this  great  man  had  all  his  portion  in 
this  world,  one  hour  in  hell-fire  would  make  him 
forget  all.  Which  consideration  was  a  great  help 
to  me. 

How  lovely  now  was  every  one  in  my  eyes,  that 
I  thought  to  be  converted  men  and  women !  They 
shone,  they  walked  like  a  people  that  carried  the 
broad  seal  of  heaven  about  them.  Oh!  I  saw 
the  lot  was  fallen  to  them  in  pleasant  places,  and 
they  had  a  goodly  heritage.  (Ps.  xvi.)  But  that 
which  made  me  sick  was  that  of  Christ,  in  Mark: 
"He  went  up  into  a  mountain,  and  called  unto 
him  whom  he  would,  and  they  came  unto  him." 
(Mark  iii.  13.) 

This  scripture  made  me  faint  and  fear,  yet  it 
kindled  fire  in  my  soul. 


386  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Pilgrim's  Progress  likewise  can  almost  be  resolved 
into  a  collection  of  texts  from  all  over  the  Bible,  put 
together  to  form  the  allegory. 

Ruskin  was  almost  as  thoroughly  saturated  with 
the  Bible;  he  gives  us  in  the  Preterita  a  list  of  the 
passages  he  learned  by  heart;  and  the  allusions 
throughout  his  writings  show  how  familiar  the  book 
was  to  him.  These  two  men  may  stand  as  examples 
of  what  was  true  of  all  makers  of  English  literature 
since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
of  almost  all  speakers  of  the  English  language  down 
to  our  own  generation.  Even  to-day  where  you  find 
a  touch  of  the  grand  style  in  a  piece  of  writing,  you 
are  almost  sure  to  detect  reminiscences  of  the  Bible. 
Lincoln  not  only  among  Americans  but  among  all 
English-speaking  people  of  the  nineteenth  century 
is  the  man  who  most  surely  attained  the  great  style, 
and  we  all  know  how  naturally  in  his  most  solemn 
moments  his  style  became  infused  with  the  phrases 
and  the  virtues  of  the  English  Bible.  Here  is  a  short 
passage  from  the  Second  Inaugural  Address: 

The  Almighty  has  his  own  purposes.  "Woe 
unto  the  world  because  of  offenses!  for  it  must 
needs  be  that  offenses  come;  but  woe  to  that  man 
by  whom  the  offense  cometh. "  If  we  shall  suppose 
that  American  slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses 
which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  must  needs  come, 


THE  KING  JAMES   BIBLE  387 

but  which,  having  continued  through  his  appointed 
time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  he  gives  to 
both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as  the 
woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall 
we  discern  therein  any  departure  from  those  divine 
attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  al- 
ways ascribe  to  him?  Fondly  do  we  hope — fer- 
vently do  we  pray — that  this  mighty  scourge  of 
war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills 
that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  un- 
rec^uited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of 
blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand 
years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  "  The  judgments 
of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether." 


One  can  find  no  better  example,  and  one  needs  none, 
of  the  certainty  with  which  this  Biblical  style  ex- 
presses the  deepest  and  strongest  feelings  of  men  of 
our  race.  Much  of  the  Bible,  especially  of  the  Old 
Testament,  can  be  described  as  primitive  in  thought ; 
but  only  if  "  primitive  '^  be  taken  to  mean  that  such 
writings  go  do\\Ti  to  the  common  roots  of  all  human 
nature,  and  are  grounded  in  feelings  and  ideas  which 
are  the  common  heritage  of  all  men,  and  which  are 
therefore  perennial  and  universal.  Thus  this  Bibli- 
cal literature  and  this  Biblical  style  in  spite  of  their 
foreign  origin  are  in  a  still  deeper  sense  native,  since 


388  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

their  appeal  reaches  down  below  feelings  and  instincts 
which  are  peculiar  to  one  age  or  to  one  country  to 
those  which  belong  to  all. 


IV 


One  does  not  need  to  say  that  the  English  Bible 
has  had  an  enormous  influence  on  the  English  lan- 
guage and  literature.  IN'ot  the  least  of  its  contribu- 
tions is  the  standard  which  it  has  set  for  all  writing 
in  English  that  has  an  ambition  to  belong  to  litera- 
ture. One  can  say  that  if  any  writing  departs  very 
far  in  any  way  from  the  characteristics  of  the  Eng- 
lish Bible  it  is  not  good  English  writing.  In  style 
it  has  been  an  axiom  long  accepted  without  question 
that  the  ultimate  standard  of  English  prose  is  set  by 
the  style  of  the  Bible.  Eor  examples  of  limpid,  con- 
vincing narrative  we  go  to  Genesis^  to  the  story  of 
Ruth,  to  the  quiet  earnestness  of  the  gospels;  for 
the  mingled  argument  and  explanation  and  exhorta- 
tion in  which  lies  the  highest  power  of  the  other  side 
of  literature,  we  go  to  the  prophets,  and  even  more 
to  the  epistles  of  the  'New  Testament;  and  for  the 
glow  of  vehemence  and  feeling  which  burn  away  the 
limits  between  poetry  and  prose,  and  make  prose 
style  at  its  highest  pitch  able  to  stand  beside  the  stir- 
ring vibrations  of  verse,  we  go  to  the  Psalms  or  to 


THE   KING  JAMES   BIBLE  389 

Job,  or  to  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  or  the  triumphant 
declaration  of  immortality  in  1  Corinthians.  If  the 
whole  range  of  English  prose  style  were  figured  in 
the  form  of  an  arch,  the  style  of  the  Bible  would 
he  the  keystone;  and  it  would  be  there  not  only  be- 
cause it  is  the  highest  point  and  culmination  of  prose 
writing,  but  also  because  it  binds  the  whole  structure 
together.  On  the  one  side  would  be  the  writing  that 
tends  more  and  more  to  the  colloquial,  which,  begin- 
ning with  such  finished  and  exquisite  talk  as  Dryden 
crystallised  in  his  writings,  runs  off  into  the  slack 
and  hasty  style  of  journalism ;  on  the  other  side,  such 
more  splendidly  and  artfully  colored  prose  as  Sir 
Thomas  Browne's  or  the  ponderous  weight  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  that  degenerate  in  the  hands  of  lesser  men 
into  preciosity  or  pedantry.  To  bring  the  two  sides 
into  bearing  on  each  other,  we  have  the  common 
standard ;  and  the  further  any  writing  on  either  side 
falls  away  from  that  standard,  the  less  it  will  have  of 
the  typical  excellence  of  the  national  style. 

In  general,  I  suppose  that  in  thus  setting  the  Eng- 
lish Bible  as  the  measure  of  English  prose  style,  one 
would  name  as  the  general  qualities  of  that  style  sim- 
plicity and  earnestness.  In  defining  French  prose 
style,  one  would  think  first,  perhaps,  of  lucidity, 
added  to  keenness  and  subtlety;  in  defining  German 
prose  style,  rather  of  thoroughness  and  the  capacity 


390  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

for  carrying  strangely  complicated  burdens  of 
thought;  but  in  the  case  of  English  prose,  since  we 
have  had  neither  an  academy  nor  a  cloistered  body 
of  learned  men  for  whom  books  have  been  chiefly 
written,  if  there  is  to  be  a  standard  which  shall  be 
a  common  measure  for  Dryden,  Swift,  Goldsmith, 
and  Burke,  or  in  our  own  period  for  Macaulay,  IN'ew- 
man,  Ruskin,  Thackeray,  and  Lincoln,  we  must  find 
for  that  common  measure  a  style  which  will  be  read 
by  all  classes  of  men,  and  which  will  carry  the  weight 
of  high  and  earnest  ideas.  In  France  there  is  a  gulf 
between  literature  and  the  peasants  whom  Millet 
painted;  in  England,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress y 
one  of  the  monuments  of  the  literature,  was  the  work 
of  a  tinker;  and  one  might  recall,  too,  Stevenson's 
story  of  the  Welsh  blacksmith  who  learned  to  read 
in  order  to  add  Robinson  Crusoe  to  his  possibilities 
of  experience.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that,  as  the  gen- 
erations pass  by,  the  books  which  are  still  regularly 
and  constantly  reprinted  are  those  like  Bohinson 
Crusoe  and  Gulliver's  Travels  and  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  which  appeal  not  only  to  a  highly  educated 
upper  class,  but  to  the  moderately  educated  middle 
and  lower  classes :  in  literature,  as  in  everything  else 
in  England  and  America,  the  final  appeal  is  to  the 
broad  democracy.  In  the  second  place,  it  is  notable 
that  the  books  which  do  survive,  at  any  rate  in  the 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  391 

case  of  prose, — for  in  the  case  of  poetry  final  causes 
are  deeper  and  more  complex, — are  almost  all  written 
by  men  with  a  purpose,  men  who  have  a  mission  to 
make  the  world  better.  There  is  something  in  the 
genius  of  the  people  which  brings  the  language  to  its 
noblest  heights  when  it  carries  a  message  that  is  to 
lift  the  people  above  themselves;  and  something  in 
the  genius  of  the  language  which  makes  it  inevitable 
that  when  the  language  reaches  these  high  points  it 
shall  show  most  strongly  these  two  qualities  of  sim- 
plicity and  earnestness. 

With  these  qualities  the  style  of  the  Bible  is  also 
notable  for  directness  of  statement,  which  gives  to 
the  style  an  unsurpassed  power  of  carrying  its  read- 
ers with  it;  the  books  of  the  Bible  are  set  forth  as 
statements  of  facts,  never  as  an  apology  or  justifi- 
cation of  the  facts  ;  and  the  effect  of  this  confidence  is 
to  give  to  the  Bible  a  virility  and  robustness  which 
in  themselves  make  it  a  worthy  model  of  a  great 
national  style.  The  constant  use  of  figurative  lan- 
guage to  expound  hard  doctrines,  too,  as  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  faith  in  Hebrews ,  or  in  the  first  verses  of 
St.  John,  explains  the  power  that  the  Bible  has  had 
to  speak  to  all  generations,  and  to  set  each  generation 
puzzling  out  for  itself  an  interpretation  in  abstrac- 
tions which  inevitably  pass  with  the  particular  stage 
of  knowledge  and  thought  for  which  they  were  made. 


392  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

The  mere  fact  that  the  words  are  Anglo-Saxon,  rather 
than  Erench  or  Latin,  means  nothing;  the  signifi- 
cance lies  in  the  fact  that  Anglo-Saxon  words  still 
stand  for  the  concrete,  tangible  objects  of  life,  and 
that  our  words  of  theorising  and  abstraction  we  have 
drawn  from  the  Latin;  it  is  the  difference  between 
such  phrases  as  "  this  is  mj  body  which  is  given  for 
you ''  of  the  gospel,  and  "  not  only  in  quality  of  ex- 
ternal signs  and  sacramental  representations,  but  in 
their  essential  properties  and  substantial  reality  "  of 
the  theologians.  In  the  Bible,  the  way  in  which  the 
words  carry  to  all  men,  whether  learned  or  ignorant, 
the  same  sense  of  reality,  of  the  actual  things  of  life, 
depends  on  the  fact  that  they  are  words  of  the  sim- 
plest kind,  naming  the  things  which  are  the  stuff  of 
everyday  experience.  Their  simplicity  not  only 
makes  them  sure  of  being  understood  by  all  men,  but 
also  of  meaning  always  the  same  things  to  all  men. 
With  this  simplicity  of  language  goes  always  the  dig- 
nity of  the  style :  whether  it  be  in  the  domestic  details 
of  Jacob's  family  life,  or  in  the  love  of  David  for  his 
son  Absalom,  or  in  the  world-sweeping  imagery  of 
Joh  or  of  Isaiah,  there  is  the  same  unstudied,  un- 
forced heightening  of  the  substance  by  the  form. 
At  times,  as  in  the  prophets  or  in  St.  Paul's  epistles, 
the  style  has  a  fire  and  a  vehemence  which  leave  no 
line  between  prose  and  poetry;  but  even  in  the  nar- 


THE  KING  JAMES   BIBLE  393 

rative  the  earnestness  and  glowing  faith  of  the 
writers  and  translators,  needing  a  stronger  medium 
than  the  subdued  rhythm  of  ordinary  prose,  have 
produced  an  intenser  vibration  which  brings  the  style 
near  to  the  stronger  and  more  rapid  movement  of 
verse. 

Such,  then,  we  may  consider  the  general  char- 
acteristics of  the  style  of  the  Bible.  Obviously  such 
a  style  can  be,  for  ordinary  writers  with  ordinary 
purposes,  only  a  standard:  it  is  not  often  that  there 
arises  a  man  like  Lincoln  who  has  the  weight  of  char- 
acter and  the  sustained  enthusiasm  or  a  subject  of 
the  grave  and  dominant  interest  that  such  a  style  de- 
mands. To  go  back  to  the  figure,  the  style  of  the 
Bible  is  at  the  apex  of  the  arch,  the  most  necessary, 
yet,  as  the  highest,  a  unique  example  of  English 
prose.  Nevertheless,  though  the  days  of  the  apostles, 
as  of  the  giants,  have  passed  by,  yet  the  standard  re- 
mains ;  and  directness  of  statement,  lasting  power  of 
convincing,  simplicity  of  words,  earnestness  and  dig- 
nity, and  a  moving  rhythm  have  been  the  qualities  of 
every  prose  style  which  has  become  classical  in  Eng- 
lish literature. 

Furthermore,  since  style,  when  it  approaches  any 
adequacy  of  expression,  reflects  the  character  of  its 
substance,  one  can  say  that  in  substance  also  the 
Bible  is  in  a  sense  the  norm  and  standard  of  our 


394  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

Englisli  literature.  Leaving  out  of  consideration 
Shakspere,  whom  it  is  so  hard  to  bring  into  any  gen- 
eralisation, one  may  roughly  say  that  the  spirit  of 
English  literature  at  its  best  is  prophetic,  that  the 
essential  characteristics  of  the  books  which  are  the 
record  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  English 
race  are  virility,  directness,  unconsciousness,  prepos- 
session with  the  higher  sides  of  life,  and  a  noble  and 
uplifting  purpose.  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene  is  a 
glorification  of  purity  and  the  virtues  of  chivalry; 
Addison  aimed  to  reform  the  licentious  manners  of 
his  day;  the  one  constant  motive  of  Swift's  morbid 
genius  was  to  castigate  the  vices  and  follies  of  men; 
and  Dr.  Johnson,  the  stoutest  Englishman  of  them 
all,  was  a  conscious  force  for  righteousness.  The 
nineteenth  century  opened  with  the  aspiring  dreams 
of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge  and  Shelley ;  and  its  great 
prose  writers,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Carlyle,  Emerson, 
and  the  rest,  were  all  consciously  preachers.  The 
ideal  of  art  merely  for  the  sake  of  beauty  has  never 
taken  a  deep  hold  on  the  men  of  our  race.  Keats, 
who  above  all  English  poets  revelled  in  sheer  beauty 
and  sensuousness  of  form,  is  commonly  and  naturally 
thought  of  as  a  poet's  poet.  It  remains  true,  there- 
fore, in  a  broad  way  with  the  substance  of  English 
literature  as  with  the  stjde,  that  the  English  Bible 
stands  as  the  norm  about  which  all  the  rest  can  be 


THE  KING  JAMES  BIBLE  395 

arranged  and  as  the  standard  by  which  it  is  not  un- 
reasonable to  estimate  it. 

Certainly  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  Eng- 
lish Bible  is  the  best  possible  preparation  for  a  study 
of  English  literature,  or  for  the  matter  of  that,  of  any 
literature.  A  chief  difficulty  in  coming  to  any  abso- 
lute and  permanent  judgment  in  such  matters  is  the 
variety  and  the  instability  of  taste.  Few  of  the  per- 
sons who  own  sets  of  Shakspere  read  much  in  his 
plays;  for  the  character  of  his  speech  is  far  enough 
away  from  us  to  make  it  for  most  people  something  of 
an  effort  to  acquire  the  taste  for  reading  him.  The 
fashions  of  the  eighteenth  century,  moulded  by  Dry- 
den  and  ossified  by  the  followers  of  Dr.  Johnson,  are 
a  weariness  of  the  flesh  to  most  readers  to-day;  and 
the  only  thing  certain  about  our  current  literature  is 
that  much  of  its  conscious  simplicity  and  naturalness 
of  expression  will  seem  slipshod  to  the  people  of  two 
or  three  generations  from  now,  when  the  pendulum 
shall  have  swung  back  to  other  tendencies.  Yet  in  all 
this  incessant  change  of  tastes  and  fashions  the  Bible 
holds  its  own.  Indeed  men  were  more  familiar  with 
it  in  the  days  of  the  Johnsonian  supremacy,  when  all 
standards  of  style  were  almost  diametrically  opposed 
to  it,  than  they  are  to-day.  Men  of  all  classes  and  all 
degrees  of  education  have  found  equal  delight  in  its 
stories  and  its  teachings,  from  John  Bunyan,  the 


396  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

tinker,  and  the  peasant  father  of  Eobert  Burns  to 
Scott  and  Browning  and  even  the  supercilious  genius 
of  Matthew  Arnold;  and  to-day,  when  it  is  so  little 
read  even  by  church-going  people,  one  can  be  certain 
of  one  thing,  and  that  is  that  its  effect  will  be  in  no 
way  limited  by  station  or  education.  Here,  then,  is 
a  work  which  it  seems  safe  to  say  is  of  something 
like  universal  appeal  to  men  of  our  race,  a  book 
which  one  may  therefore  look  on  as  touching  the  soul 
of  the  race  as  a  whole.  For  this  reason,  therefore, 
if  for  no  other,  one  must  hope  to  see  the  study  of 
the  Bible  begin  to  take  a  place  in  the  study  of  Eng- 
lish literature. 


APPENDIX 

The  following  books  will  prove  useful  to  persons 
who  desire  further  knowledge  of  the  problems  dis- 
cussed and  the  results  attained  by  the  Higher  Criti- 
cism through  a  historical  study  of  both  the  Old  and 
the  A^ew  Testament,  or  of  the  history  of  the  English 
Bible.  The  copious  references  which  they  contain 
will  lead  a  student  as  far  as  he  cares  to  go.  I  have  se- 
lected for  mention  books  which  are  moderate  in  tone, 
cautious  in  judgment,  and  copious  in  their  statement 
of  evidence. 

For  a  general  introduction  to  the  Higher  Criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament:  W.  Eobertson  Smith,  The 
Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,  2d  edition, 
1900. 

For  the  background  of  the  ISTew  Testament:  A.  C. 
McGiffert,  A  History  of  Christianity  in  the  Apos- 
tolic Age,  Eevised  edition,  1900. 

For  the  Old  Testament:  S.  E.  Driver,  An  Introduc- 
tion to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  8th 
edition,  1898. 

397 


398  THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE 

For  the  New  Testament:  Part  II  of  A  Biblical  In- 
troduction, by  Bennett  and  Adeney,  2d  edition, 
1904. 

For  the  English  Bible:  B.  F.  Westcott,  A  General 
View  of  the  History  of  the  English  Bible,  3d 
edition  (W.  A.  Wright),  1905;  and  K.  Lovett, 
The  Printed  English  Bible,  in  Present  Day 
Primers,  n.d. 

For  general  reference  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible. 


INDEX 


Abstract  words  in  New  Testa- 
ment, 181. 

Acts,  rhetorical  style  in,  72. 

Alphabetic  poems,  99. 

Amalgamation  of  the  sources 
of  the  Bible,  9,  309. 

Amos,  18,  219,  246. 

Apocalypses,  a  development 
from  the  prophecy,  250;  the 
visions  of,  257;  originated  in 
persecutions,  264;  their  im- 
agery immaterial,  270. 

Authorised  Version  is  the  Bible 
in  English  literature,  283; 
the  origin  of,  344;  the  prin- 
ciples followed  by  the  trans- 
lators, 347 ;  the  simplicity  of 
its  vocabulary,  368;  the  skill 
showed  by  the  translators, 
352,  372;  the  rhythm  of, 
375. 

Bible,  the  unity  of  the,  1;  in 
English  hterature,  376;  the 
foreignness  of,  8,  377 ;  woven 
into  English  language  and 
hterature,  384. 

Bishops'  Bible,  the,  339. 

Browning's  Saul,  82,  380. 


Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
75;  Grace  Abounding,  385. 

Canon,  the  growth  of,  284. 
Canticles  of  St.  Luke,  106. 
Colet,  John,  312. 
Coverdale,  his  version,  328. 

Daniel,  the  declaration  of  im- 
mortahty  in,  30,  266;  the 
visions  of,  258,  267. 

Deuteronomy,  the  reforms  of, 
21;  the  influence  of  on  the 
hterature,  23,62;  the  teach- 
ing of,  27. 

Diversity  of  the  sources  of  the 
Bible,  6. 

Ecclesiastes,  the  general  char- 
acter of,  143;  the  personal 
note  in,  144;  its  failure  to 
solve  the  problem  of  retribu- 
tion, 153. 

Emotion,  the  expression  of, 
115,  121. 

English  language  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  357. 

English  literature,  the  spirit  of, 
394. 


399 


400 


INDEX 


Epistles  show  abstract  reason- 
ing, 177. 

Erasmus,  his  edition  of  the 
Greek  New  Testament,  312. 

2  Esdras,  the  visions  in,  258; 
the  background  of  suffering 
in,  264. 

Ezekiel,  his  influence  on  the 
priestly  writing,  53;  the 
prophecies  of,  235;  the 
allegorical  visions  of,  260. 

Genevan  Bible,  the,  336. 
Great  Bible,  the,  334. 

Hebrew  language,  its  simplic- 
ity of  structure,  68;  the 
concreteness  of  its  vocabu- 
lary, 113. 

Historical  background  of  the 
Bible,  12. 

Hosea,  245. 


Jerome,  296. 

Jesus,  the  literary  form  of  His 
teachings,  171. 

Jews,  the  late  history  of,  23. 

Job,  a  series  of  poems,  101 ;  the 
origin  and  date  of,  127;  the 
incoherence  of,  145,  157; 
based  on  the  doctrine  of  re- 
tribution, 147;  its  solution 
of  the  problem  of  retribution, 
155. 

Job,  a  figure  for  suffering  Israel, 
131. 

John,  connected  in  structure, 
176. 

Judah,  the  overthrow  of,  21. 

Lamentations,  99. 
Lamentation  measure,  106, 109. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  386. 
Literature,     normal     develop- 
ment of,  216. 


Isaiah,  the  teaching  of,  19;  the 
prophecies  of,  223. 

Isaiah  xxiv-xxvii,  253. 

Isaiah  of  the  Exile,  the  teach- 
ing of,  28;  the  prophecies 
of,  239. 

Israel,  the  early  history  of, 
14;  the  early  religion  of,  17. 

James,  William,  on  the  nature 
of  reasoning,  160;  The  Vari- 
ties  of  Religious  Experience, 
204,  277. 

Jeremiah,  the  prophecies  of, 
231. 


Martin,  Gregory,  the  chief 
worker  in  the  Rhemish  Testa- 
ment, 340. 

Matthew's  Bible,  333. 

Micah,  245. 

Milton,  sonnet  On  the  Late 
Massacre  in  Piemont,  100; 
Samson  Agonistes,  379. 

Mysticism,  the  nature  of,  199; 
reasoning  through  the  emo- 
tions, 204. 

Narrative,  the  general  attri- 
butes of,  34;  three  types  of, 
in  Old  Testament,  36;  their 


INDEX 


401 


origin,  51 ;  the  early,  42;  the 
priestly,  44;  the  Deutero- 
nomic,  48;  explanatory  pas- 
sages in,  59;  in  the  gospels, 
76;  the  lasting  power  of,  86. 

New  Testament,  the  origin  of 
as  a  collection,  288. 

North  Israel,  the  destruction 
of,  17. 

Old  Testament,  the  origin  of 
as  a  collection,  285. 

Paul,  St.,  his  reasoning  in  part 
rabbinical,  188;  his  moral 
teachings,  192;  his  reasoning 
figurative,  193;  and  in  part 
mystical,  198. 

Picturesqueness  of  bibical  lan- 
guage, 364. 

Poems,  alphabetic,  99. 

Poetry,  only  a  portion  extant, 
89;  early  and  late,  91;  the 
principles  of  its  structure, 
107;  its  form  in  the  Eng- 
lish, 109  ;  never  represent- 
ative, 129. 

Prophecy  poetical  in  form, 
104,  209;  the  foreignness  of, 
209;  the  most  typical  part 
of  Hebrew  literature,  213; 
the  chronological  develop- 
ment of,  214. 

Prophet,  the  position  and  char- 
acter of,  210;  the  mouth- 
piece of  Jehovah,  245. 

Proverbs,  poetical  in  form,  102; 
the    contents    of,    138;    the 


date    of,    140;    the    general 
character  of,  141. 
Psahns,    origin    and    date    of, 
124. 

Reasoning,  the  nature  of, 
160;  the  absence  of  in  the 
Old  Testament,  163;  in  the 
Epistles  and  John,  178,  185. 

Revelation,  the  visions  in,  259; 
in  form  an  apocalypse,  267; 
its  imagery  drawn  from  the 
Old  Testament,  268;  the  sug- 
gestive power  of,  273;  the 
power  of  sound  in,  276;  its 
appeal  to  the  religious  emo- 
tions, 280. 

Rhemish  New  Testament,  the, 
340,  369. 

Shakspere,  110. 

Septuagint,  the  origin  and  con- 
tents of,  291;  the  influence 
of  on  the  English  Bible,  292. 

Song  of  Solomon,  103. 

Style,  the  sensuous  expressive- 
ness of,  361. 

Style,  the  Biblical,  a  standard 
in  English,  388. 

Suffering  Israel,  the  figure  of  in 
Job,  Isaiah  and  the  Psalms, 
131. 

Theology  in  the  Epistles,  190. 

Theories  of  historj',  early  pro- 
phetic, 59;  Deuteronomist, 
62;  priestly,  65. 

Tindale,   William,  the  life  of, 


402 


INDEX 


315;  the  style  of,  320;  fixed 
the     style    of    the    English 
Bible,  324. 
Translation    in    the    sixteenth 
century,  306. 

Vulgate,  its  influence  on  Eng- 
lish, 122,  294,  298,  308;  its 
origin,  295;  its  likeness  to  the 
style  of  the  Enghsh,  299;  its 
musical  qualities,  302. 


Wisdom  books,  poetical  in 
form,  156;  empirical  in  con- 
tents, 158;  always  emotion- 
al in  character,  164;  their 
permanent  power,  168. 

Words,  general  and  concrete, 
359. 

Wyclif's  translation,  311. 

Zechariah,  the  visions  of,  262. 


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